Luminate with Lan Anh Vu Lan Anh Vu

Today’s guest is Brian Lee, a rock-star serial entrepreneur. Brian has cofounded several companies worth over a billion dollars each, such as Legalzoom with Robert Shapiro, The Honest Company with Jessica Alba, ShoeDazzle with Kim Kardashian and Arena Club with baseball legend Derek Jeter.
Brian is also the cofounder and managing partner of BAM Ventures, an early-stage VC firm. Brian wrote the first investment check into Honey, which went on to sell to PayPal for $4B.
Brian was formerly an attorney with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, LLP. 
Brian graduated Magna Cum Laude with a B.A. in Economics and Business from UCLA. He received his J.D. from UCLA School of Law.
He was named Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year in 2014.
In this episode, we dive into:
The incredible stories of how LegalZoom, ShoeDazzle, The Honest Company and Arena Club came to fruition. The secret sauce behind celebrity partnerships How Brian made his transition into VC venture capital The types of founders that VCs want to invest in

Today’s guest is Magnus Grimeland, founder and CEO of Antler, one of the world’s largest day zero investor. Antler’s pre-seed strategy canvasses 27 countries, more than 1000+ portfolio companies, 8,000+ founders, and over 100,000 annual applications.

Magnus previously co-founded Zalora, Southeast Asia’s largest fashion e-commerce company. It was later acquired by Global Fashion Group (GFG), where Magnus served as COO and Managing Director, rolling out the firm’s marketplace across 26 countries. 

Magnus is an alumnus of Harvard University and McKinsey & Company, where he worked for six years. His last role at McKinsey & Co was as a Junior Partner, working across North America, Europe, and Asia in the global telecom, media, and high-tech industries.

In this episode, we dive into:

Magnus’s journey from growing up in a farm countryside in Norway to building a global startup platform. What Magnus has learned reviewing thousands of applications to Antler The importance of finding founders with drive, spike, and grit The process for building the infrastructure for founders to solve important problems in the world What it feels like to find product-market fit

Today’s guest is Emily Hikade, founder and CEO of the luxury sleepwear brand Petite Plume.
Emily launched Petite Plume in 2015 and it has been profitable since its first year. The company has also doubled its revenue every year since launch, and it has reached almost $100 million in revenue. Petite Plume pajamas are coveted by the Royal Family, Gwyneth Paltrow, Anderson Cooper, Miranda Kerr, and Kourtney Kardashian, just to name a few.  
Prior to founding Petite Plume, Emily worked for the CIA as an operations officer in the Clandestine Service for nearly two decades.
In this episode, we dive into:
Emily’s experience working in the CIA What it was like to make such a major career pivot Where her idea for Petite Plume came from The art of failing forward How she builds a high performing team How she’s able to sustain and grow the business without raising external capital

Today's guest is Emmanuel Straschnov, founder and co-CEO of Bubble, a platform that empowers users to create powerful web apps without writing code.
To date, Emmanuel has raised over $106 million for the company from the likes of Insight Partners, SignalFire, and Box Group, to name a few.
In this episode, we dive into:
How Emmanuel started Bubble with Josh What makes a great cofounder relationship The early days of Bubble Why it took Emmanuel 5 years to hire the first employee How Emmanuel bootstrapped for 7 years What has been the single biggest lesson Emmanuel has learned when it comes to fundraising? How to price a product/service

Today’s guest is Larry Gadea, founder and CEO of Envoy. Envoy is a workplace platform that helps companies welcome visitors, keep employees safe, book desks and conference rooms, and manage deliveries in over 16,000 locations around the globe.
To date, Larry has raised over $170 million for Envoy from a16z, Menlo Ventures, Brookfield Growth, Marc Benioff, Elad Gil to name a few.
Prior to Envoy, Larry started his career as a software engineer at 17, having been recruited by Google out of high school. He later joined X (formerly Twitter) as one of the early people driving its ability to scale.
In today’s episode, we talk about Larry experiences at Google and Twitter and to better understand what pain points Envoy was trying to solve. We also talk about Larry on leadership lessons scaling Envoy to a billion-dollar company, what it takes to manage the board effectively, and so much more.

Today's guest is Daniel Goleman, one of the world’s leading experts on the science of emotion. Daniel is the author of Emotional Intelligence, a blockbuster book that sold more than 5 million copies in about 40 languages. 
Apart from his writing on emotional intelligence, Daniel has written books on topics including self-deception, creativity, transparency, meditation, social and emotional learning, eco-literacy and the ecological crisis. His latest book, Optimal, shows why emotional intelligence can help each of us have rewarding and productive days.
Ranked one of the 10 most influential business thinkers by the Wall Street Journal, Daniel’s articles in the Harvard Business Review are among the most frequently requested reprints. He has won many awards, including the HBR McKinsey Award for best article of the year. Harvard’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences awarded him its Centennial Medallion.
He started out by getting his PhD in clinical psychology at Harvard, and he then spent 12 years writing about brain research as a science reporter for the New York Times.
In this episode, Lan Anh talks to Daniel about why emotional intelligence matters, how science demonstrates that emotional intelligence matters far more than IQ, how we can enhance and manage our emotions to expand our brain capacity, and gives actionable tips about how we can learn emotional intelligence.