Best StartUp Podcast episodes upvoted by the community

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October 18, 2019 • 40m

As acquisition talks with Spotify continue, Alex and Matt face their hopes and fears about what might lie ahead.

Alex Talks to Missouri Star Quilt Company Co-Founder Jenny Doan

August 23, 2019 • 30m

Jenny Doan and her husband, Ron, lost most of their savings in the 2008 financial crisis. Retirement was just around the corner, and they didn’t know how they would make it through. That’s when the family went all-in on an unlikely business—a quilt shop.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our Company Has Problems

October 04, 2019 • 33m

It's the spring of 2018, four years after Alex and Matt launched Gimlet, and things are not going well. Audiences are flat, ad sales are flagging, and the company is burning through cash at an alarming rate. And with all of those pressures, Alex and Matt have started to fight.

Thanksgiving in Stockholm

October 11, 2019 • 40m

Just days before Thanksgiving, Alex and Matt board a red-eye to Stockholm for a conversation that could change everything.

StartupBus 1: Monday

December 11, 2017

This summer, 20 strangers got on a bus headed from New York to New Orleans. For five days, they had one goal: to build and launch companies while on the bus. We’ll be telling this story as it unfolded — with one new episode, every day, over the next five days.Today’s episode: Monday. Day One.

Alex Talks to a Cold Case Investigator

March 29, 2019 • 46m

Paul Holes was starting out in the field of criminology when, one day in 1994, he spotted a filing cabinet in the library of the crime lab where he was working. He opened a drawer, pulled out some files, and discovered the cold case that he would spend his entire career trying to solve. He did it through a trial and error process that involved old-fashioned detective work, new technology, and countless wrong turns before he finally found himself at the Golden State Killer’s front door.

Alex Talks to Actress Anna Chlumsky

April 19, 2019 • 40m

Anna Chlumsky became famous virtually overnight at the age of 10, when she starred in the 1991 hit My Girl opposite Macaulay Culkin. And then, a few years later, she disappeared. She left acting completely and decided to become something else: an utterly normal college student, who set off on an utterly normal career. Anna tells Alex about that time in her life, about her eventual return to acting, and about playing Amy Brookheimer on the HBO show Veep. She’s earned five Emmy nominations in that role.

Friendster 2: The Fall

April 28, 2017

After a turbulent start and the firing of its founder, Friendster looked like it was back on track. It was still the biggest social network around and its board—which was packed with some of the biggest names in venture capital—quickly assembled a star-studded executive team. So, why couldn’t all that talent deliver on the company’s promise? Why aren’t we all logging onto Friendster today? Ask AlexGot a question for Alex Blumberg? Leave us a message at 812-641-1231, and your question could end up on the show.The FactsMark Phillips wrote and performed our theme song.Build Buildings wrote and performed our special ad music.Additional music by Typhoon, Jupyter, Marley Carrol and the band Hot Moms Dot Gov.David Herman, Ian Scott, and Rick Kwan mixed the episode.

Dating Ring 6: Profiled

June 02, 2015

In online dating, love is not blind

Dating Ring 3: Another Side Of The Story (REBROADCAST)

June 09, 2017

Hello, there! This week we’re rebroadcasting an episode from way back in Season 2 when we were following Dating Ring, a company that was different from other dating sites and apps because it used matchmakers to help its customers go out on dates. This episode picks up just after the co-founders of the company, Lauren and Emma, finished Y Combinator and started pitching angel investors. You’ll hear them struggle to raise money—while wondering if their company was floundering for reasons completely outside of their control.

BONUS: Introducing Science Vs

July 28, 2016

Alex Blumberg interviews Wendy Zukerman, host of Gimlet Media's newest show, Science Vs. Hear how Wendy found her way to Gimlet and enjoy the first half of the latest episode: Science Vs Attachment Parenting.

Arlan Hamilton 6: Going Rogue

June 08, 2018

In our final episode of the series, Arlan is on a roll. She’s making new investments, raising her profile in the VC world, and bringing new people into her network. Some of her founders tell us why they really wanted investment from Backstage. And Arlan makes a surprise announcement that surprises her peers in Venture Capital.This is the final episode in our six-part series on Arlan Hamilton and her company, Backstage Capital. Listen from the very beginning here.To find a list of our sponsors and show-related promo codes, go to gimlet.media/OurAdvertisers

Making a TV Series 2: Santa's Hollywood Workshop

October 26, 2018

Micah and Eli get to work, writing the scripts for the Homecoming TV show. But taking something meant only for the ear, and turning it into something for the eye... proves to be deceptively challenging. Plus, Alex visits the set of the show, to meet the small army of people actually building the visual world of Homecoming. This is the second part of a four-part mini-series on the making of the Homecoming TV show.Want more StartUp? Check out our newsletter! You can sign up at: gimletmedia.com/newsletter.To find a list of our sponsors and show-related promo codes, go to gimlet.media/OurAdvertisers

Success Academy 1: The Problem

November 09, 2018

The Story: Eva Moskowitz wants to fix a really big problem. There are over a million kids in New York City’s public schools. Most can’t read or do math at grade level. Many won’t graduate on time. And it’s largely poor, black and brown kids who are stuck in the lowest performing schools. Eva’s the founder and CEO of Success Academy, the subject of this season of StartUp. And she’s actually making progress. Her school network is growing at lightning speed, and her students get among the highest standardized-test scores in the city, beating out schools in some of the wealthiest districts. And the education world is watching. But not everyone likes what they see. In this season, we ask how exactly Success is doing what it’s doing, and why does it have so many critics?Today, on the first of our six-part series about Success, we meet a mother, Sherisse, who desperately wants her son to get into Success, so that he can have opportunities she never had herself. And we go inside a Success classroom on the first day of school, to see what parents like Sherisse are clamoring for.The Facts:Peter Leonard mixed the episode. Our theme song is by Mark Philips, remixed by Bobby Lord. Build Buildings wrote and performed our special ad music. Additional music by Peter Leonard, Bobby Lord, Hot Moms Dot Gov, Jupyter, Mothica,Golden Gram and BlueDot.For a list of our sponsors and show related offer codes, go to gimlet.media/OurAdvertisers

BONUS: Introducing The Pitch

June 14, 2017

Alex and Matt talk to Josh Muccio, the host of Gimlet's newest show, about his path to podcasting. Then we sample the first half of the latest episode of Josh's show, The Pitch.

BONUS: Introducing Twice Removed

January 13, 2017

In episode 2 of this season of StartUp, producer Molly Messick followed producers Eric Mennel and Ngofeen Mputubwele, who were working on creating a new Gimlet show called Twice Removed. That show has now launched. In this special bonus episode, Alex Blumberg catches up with Eric and Ngofeen, to see how things have been going since Molly spoke with them this past summer. Enjoy this update from the Twice Removed team and then listen to the first half of a new episode, which features Alex's wife Nazanin Rafsanjani as a special guest.

Alex Talks to Hollywood Hitmaker Nina Jacobson

November 01, 2019 • 45m

Nina Jacobson is a force in Hollywood. She’s behind some of the biggest movies of the last 20 years: The Sixth Sense, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Chronicles of Narnia, The Hunger Games, and most recently Crazy Rich Asians. She’s had a lot of success. But also some pretty big failures: a public firing, some box office flops. Nina walks Alex through her failure resume and talks about what it takes to make a hit.

Alex Talks to Rom-Com Revolutionary Aline Brosh McKenna

December 06, 2019 • 36m

Aline Brosh McKenna got her big break as the screenwriter of The Devil Wears Prada. But even after successful box office hits and many years in Hollywood, she found herself having to compromise her vision over and over again. So she took matters into her own hands.

Domains 1: The .com King

September 01, 2017

StartUp is back for a brand new season, and we're kicking things off with a story about the competitive world of domains.Reporter Amy Standen brings us the story of Rick Schwartz, who earned the title “Domain King” by building a portfolio of dot com web addresses worth millions. But why is a “.com” address worth so much in the first place? And why doesn’t Gimlet own “gimlet.com”?And coming up this season, we'll hear from startups in unexpected places. We'll go to the Mojave Desert for a self-driving car race, we'll take you on a cross-country bus ride for a hackathon on wheels, and we'll head to China to track their growing pop music scene.

Alex, Inc. 6: Alex and Matt Pop Quiz

April 06, 2018

Gimlet co-founders Alex Blumberg and Matt Lieber are pretty much on the same page… right?This week, we put their relationship to the test. Producer Luke Malone got Matt and Alex into separate studios and asked them the same set of questions. Then, Matt and Alex listened back to each other’s answers and find out if they’re really as in sync as they thought. Do the same things keep them up at night? Do they want the same things for the company? And what were their first impressions of one another?To find a list of our sponsors and show-related promo codes, go to gimlet.media/oursponsors