Best Business Podcasts - Leadership, Startups & Entrepreneurship

On today’s episode Lindsay Moran shares how her time as a CIA spy taught her to assess, strategize, and embrace challenges in order to succeed. Listen in as Lindsay and I discuss the advantages to compartmentalizing aspects of life, being able to read people, understanding vulnerability, and how her role as an operative impacted her views of motherhood. Lindsay also explores the impact of human trafficking on women and children and why she’s teaming up with DeliverFund to make a difference.

Most companies think innovation is about technology, strategy, or process. Dr. Bruce Vojak says they’re wrong. In this episode of Deep Leadership, Jon Rennie sits down with innovation expert Dr. Bruce Vojak to explore why innovation succeeds or fails based on the people inside the organization. Drawing from decades of experience at companies like Motorola and from his research on “serial innovators,” Bruce explains how breakthrough ideas actually happen and why mature companies must innovate if they want to survive. They discuss: Why innovation is more than creativity or new technology The connection between innovation and organizational resilience How great leaders create cultures where ideas can surface Why some employees can “see patterns” others miss The hidden innovators already inside your company How mature industries can still create breakthrough innovation Why introverts often become powerful innovators The leadership mistakes that quietly kill innovation If you lead a business, manage a team, or want your organization to stay competitive in a rapidly changing world, this conversation is packed with practical insight. Dr. Bruce Vojak is the co-author of No Excuses Innovation and Serial Innovators and advises organizations on building sustainable innovation cultures that drive long-term success. Dr. Bruce Vojak’s Resources: Website: ⁠https://www.breakthrough-innovation-advisors.com/ Books: ⁠https://amzn.to/4nwDUoa LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/bvojak/ Subscribe to Deep Leadership: If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe and share it with someone who wants to become a better leader. Sponsors: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Cadre of Men⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Farrow Skin Care⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Salty Sailor Coffee Company⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Leader Connect⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠The Qualified Leadership Series⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ____ Get all of Jon Rennie's bestselling leadership books for 15% off the regular price today! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠HERE⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In today's episode of "Founder & CEO," Mike and Patrick welcome Sandra O' Sullivan, Chief People & Operations Officer at Curriculum Associates, to break down the true impact of a Chief People Officer. They cover when to hire one, what great CPOs actually do day-to-day, how they partner with CEOs and CFOs, and why people issues dominate 60 to 80 percent of a founder’s time. If you’re scaling beyond 60 to 100 employees, this episode is your playbook for turning HR into a true strategic advantage.

May 15, 2026: The Guardian documents the tech industry's accelerating purge of middle managers — and history says companies have tried this exact bet before with Jack Welch and the Reengineering movement, with disastrous long-term results. The Wall Street Journal reports companies are drowning in ungoverned AI agents, raising a critical question: is agentic AI actually different from the RPA sprawl crisis of a decade ago, and is the difference showing up in real outcomes? And Yale's Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and NYU's Gary Marcus argue in Fortune that America's 1,200 AI bills have no shared test for what makes good policy — and the regulatory patchwork hardening in place rhymes uncomfortably with the conditions that produced the 2008 financial crisis.

What does it take to run a company where the business is risk itself?In conversation with Joubin Mirzadegan, Peter Zaffino shares what the role demands at AIG, including high stakes decisions, constant responsibility, and sacrifice. This episode looks at his journey as CEO ahead of his transition to Executive Chairman this June.Leading at a global scale across 200+ countries.Guest: Peter ZaffinoConnect with Peter ZaffinoLinkedInConnect with Joubin:XLinkedInEmail: grit@kleinerperkins.comFollow on LinkedInFollow on X​Learn more about Kleiner Perkins

Today’s callers: Kristina in Florida wants to take her local pottery workshops nationwide. Then Jim from Colorado wonders if retail is right for his quick release camera straps. And Will in Ohio hopes his business will change what consumers expect from tool rental services. Thank you to the founders of Seagrass Pottery, Lemur Strap and Tool Club for being a part of our show. If you’d like to be featured on a future Advice Line episode—where Guy and former show guests take questions from early-stage founders—leave us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and a specific question you’d like answered. Send a voice memo to hibt@id.wondery.com or call 1-800-433-1298. And be sure to listen to our episodes with Chieh Huang of Boxed, Hernan Lopez of Wondery and David Neeleman of Jet Blue. This episode was produced by Kerry Thompson with music by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by John Isabella. Our audio engineer was Cena Loffredo. You can follow HIBT on X & Instagram and sign up for Guy’s free newsletter at guyraz.com or on Substack See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Caitlin Kalinowski was most recently at OpenAI helping build their robotics and hardware teams from scratch. Prior to that, she was head of AR glasses and VR hardware at Meta, where she led the teams building every generation of the Quest, Rift, and Orion, and was Meta’s first consumer electronics hire. Before this, she was technical lead on MacBook Air and Mac Pro at Apple, and helped engineer the original unibody MacBook Pro. She’s designed and engineered some of the hardest and most beloved consumer hardware products in history and is now focused on the next frontier: robotics.In our in-depth conversation, we discuss:1. VR—what happened?2. The coming memory price shock and why she’s telling startups to pre-buy now3. How the technologies built for VR became the foundation of modern warfare4. Why humanoid robots are still just prototypes, and what’s actually gating mass deployment5. Lessons from Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sam Altman6. Why she left OpenAI—Brought to you by:WorkOS—Make your app enterprise-ready, with SSO, SCIM, RBAC, and more: https://workos.com/lennyVanta—Automate compliance, manage risk, and accelerate trust with AI: https://vanta.com/lenny—Episode transcript: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/why-were-at-the-beginning-of-the—Archive of all Lenny's Podcast transcripts: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/yxi4s2w998p1gvtpu4193/AMdNPR8AOw0lMklwtnC0TrQ?rlkey=j06x0nipoti519e0xgm23zsn9&st=ahz0fj11&dl=0—Where to find Caitlin Kalinowski:• X: https://x.com/kalinowski007• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ckalinowski• Website: https://www.caitlinkalinowski.com—Where to find Lenny:• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com• X: https://twitter.com/lennysan• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/In this episode, we cover:(00:00) Introduction to Caitlin Kalinowski(02:32) Why VR didn’t take off despite incredible hardware(04:55) The future of AR glasses and physical AI(08:45) Why robotics and hardware are suddenly hot(13:33) Why humanoid robots aren’t ready yet(16:13) Supply chain bottlenecks threatening robotics(17:31) Why magnets and actuators are critical dependencies(20:51) The geopolitical implications of hardware supply chains(24:48) AI safety concerns with physical robots(26:50) Apple’s approach to hardware excellence(30:10) Building a hardware program from scratch at Meta(31:39) The Quest 2 cost reduction story(33:07) Critical principles for hardware development(39:58) The MacBook Air manila envelope moment(41:01) The butterfly keyboard situation(41:43) Lessons from Apple on customer feedback(44:46) The memory price crisis coming for hardware(49:31) How many components go into a robot(52:53) When to use off-the-shelf vs. custom components(55:02) How AI is changing hardware engineering(1:00:27) Why humanoids aren’t the answer for most use cases(1:03:05) When robots will build other robots(1:06:23) What makes a robot feel human and connected(1:09:15) Robots in the home(1:12:00) What the next five years look like(1:15:38) Why she left OpenAI(1:18:09) How to hire exceptional hardware teams(1:23:42) Lessons from Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sam Altman(1:27:27) Failure corner(1:32:33) Lightning round—References: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/why-were-at-the-beginning-of-the—Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.—Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed. To hear more, visit www.lennysnewsletter.com

In a new follow-up to his bestselling book Range, author David Epstein reveals his new contrarian take: The best thing for innovation is actually constraints. Epstein talks with host Jeff Berman about the fascinating research he did to prove out this idea, with examples from Silicon Valley, Pixar and more. Subscribe to the Masters of Scale weekly newsletter: https://mastersofscale.com/subscribe See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Dr Guy Leschziner is a consultant neurologist, sleep physician, and author who specialises in the science of sleep, circadian rhythms, and the hidden ways our brains shape our nights. In today’s moment, he unpacks how poor sleep can change everything from your appetite and weight to your emotions, cravings, and long-term health. He reveals what your body clock is really doing, and his true opinion on sleep trackers: harmful or helpful? Listen to the full episode here! Spotify: https://g2ul0.app.link/6btyk6znG2b Apple: https://g2ul0.app.link/ZFC5hNCnG2b Watch the Episodes On YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/%20TheDiaryOfACEO/videos Follow Guy: https://www.guyleschziner.com/

Jerzy Gregorek (@TheHappyBody) is a 4x World Weightlifting Champion, co-founder of UCLA’s weightlifting team, and co-creator, with his wife Aniela, of the Happy Body program. You can watch the documentary Prisoner No More, directed by Jeff Wolfe and produced by WolfePrideProductions.com, for free here: tim.blog/hardchoices. To fill out the form on Cerebral Palsy Research Project, visit tim.blog/cp. This episode is brought to you by:Matic the intelligent robot vacuum and mop that navigates obstacles and needs no babysitting: MaticRobots.com/TimOur Place’s Titanium Always Pan® Pro using nonstick technology that’s coating-free and made without PFAS, otherwise known as “forever chemicals”: FromOurPlace.com/TimTimestamps[00:00:00] Start.[00:01:29] The transformation I’ve been chasing for a decade.[00:02:39] When an unstoppable coach meets an immovable cerebral palsy diagnosis.[00:04:35] Three pounds to 170: the bench press that woke a brain up.[00:07:17] Navigating autism and building the basics of communication that sustain higher education.[00:10:41] Treadmills exhaust, athletes progress: why physical therapy stalled where coaching took off.[00:19:00] Lethargy, sleeping in the car, and the quiet power of resting energy.[00:20:22] The 16-inch box that opened the bathroom door — and everything after.[00:24:26] Micro-progressions, certificates, ceremonies, and writing history onto a blank brain.[00:29:16] Parental dedication and appreciation.[00:31:54] The adulthood gambit: quit piano, quit training — if you can stick an 18-inch jump.[00:35:14] License plates as the gateway drug from counting to math five hours a day.[00:40:04] Jerzy’s coaching style doesn’t court approval.[00:42:42] Genghis Khan vs. Admiral Yi Sun-Sin vs. Jerzy vs. Tae Jin.[00:46:35] In search of the science behind such transformations: 25 patients, five years, and a method built to be replicated (interested researchers, visit tim.blog/cp).[01:05:39] Hard choices, easy life — and the call to find your starting point.* For show notes and past guests on The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast. For deals from sponsors of The Tim Ferriss Show, please visit tim.blog/podcast-sponsors Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (5-Bullet Friday) at tim.blog/friday. For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts. Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books. Follow Tim: Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferriss YouTube: youtube.com/timferriss Facebook: facebook.com/timferriss LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/timferriss See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.