Unreasonable Stories

Unreasonable Group
  • 0.0 (0)
  • ENTREPRENEURSHIP
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

Unreasonable Stories is a podcast from Unreasonable Group featuring conversations with entrepreneurs, leaders, and builders working on some of the hardest problems of our time. Hosted by Daniel Epstein, founder of Unreasonable Group, each episode goes beyond the business to hear the real story of the person behind the work, from what drives them and how they got here, to what they've learned along the way.

Episodes

  1. A Million Babies and What It Cost to Save Them

    2 APR

    A Million Babies and What It Cost to Save Them

    Jane Chen co-founded Embrace Global as a student project at Stanford in 2007. She moved to India at 25 and spent four years working 12-to-15-hour days to bring a portable infant incubator to market. That technology — a sleeping-bag-like device that maintains 98 degrees for six hours on a 30-minute charge — has now saved over a million babies' lives in humanitarian crisis zones worldwide. In this conversation, Jane talks about the real cost of that mission. A major distribution deal collapsed a week before signing, leaving seven days of cash in the bank. Mark Benioff responded with one line: "I will fund your company." Years later, a second deal was fully signed, but the acquiring company shut down before the wire transferred. Jane hit rock bottom — severe panic attacks, depression, unable to get through a meal. She left everything behind and went on a healing journey that took her from Indonesia to frog poisoning ceremonies to Internal Family Systems therapy. The breakthrough: her drive to save powerless children came from feeling powerless in a violent home as a child. She shares what she learned about trauma, self-compassion, and why resilience isn't about grit — it's about being kind to yourself in the face of immense struggle. The conversation also covers identity in the age of AI, the illusion of control, somatic awareness, and how to make decisions from love instead of fear. It closes with Jane surfing in Honolulu with Nathan — a two-pound baby abandoned in China, saved by an Embrace incubator, now 14 years old and catching waves beside her. (00:00) Introduction (02:30) The Book and the Fellowship (03:54) What Writing a Memoir Revealed (06:09) The Why Behind the Why (09:17) Worth Beyond Achievement (13:39) Identity in the Age of AI (15:28) The Illusion of Control (18:27) What We Can Actually Control (20:37) Throwing the Book in the Ocean (22:27) The Gift of the Process (23:31) The Origin of Embrace Global (26:22) Moving to India and Building the Company (29:57) The Distribution Deal That Collapsed (32:13) Mark Benioff and the Meditation at Davos (34:10) The Roller Coaster of Entrepreneurship (36:40) Burnout and the Second Collapse (39:23) Rock Bottom and Panic Attacks (40:56) Resilience Is Self-Compassion (42:37) The Coincidence That Saved Embrace (45:00) Tony Robbins and the Rebirth of Embrace (47:52) A Million Babies and Nathan's Story (51:00) What Healing Looks Like (55:27) The Science of Trauma (57:28) Internal Family Systems and Self-Compassion (59:54) Leading from a Healed Place (1:01:15) Decisions from Love or Fear (1:07:17) The Wisdom in Difficult Emotions (1:08:22) Jane's Coaching Practice and How to Connect (1:13:44) Closing Reflections

    1hr 15min
  2. Concrete That Works With the Ocean, Not Against It

    26 MAR

    Concrete That Works With the Ocean, Not Against It

    Seventy percent of marine infrastructure worldwide is concrete, and almost all of it is harming the ecosystems around it. Dr. Ido Sella has spent 14 years trying to change that. His company, ECOncrete, tweaks the composition of concrete so that marine larvae — oysters, corals, barnacles — can actually settle and grow on it instead of being repelled. The result: 7x more carbon sequestration per square foot, reduced invasive species, and infrastructure that gets stronger over time as biology builds a protective crust on its surface. ECOncrete has deployed across 50+ projects in more than 30 countries and 10 seas, all with a team of 40 people. Time Magazine named it one of the top 100 inventions in the world in 2019. In Staten Island, their breakwaters are bringing oysters back to a waterfront that was once known as the oyster capital of the Northeast. In this conversation, Ido talks about the science, the business, and what drives a marine biologist to build a company in one of the most conservative industries on earth. He also talks about co-founding ECOncrete with Dr. Shimrit Perkol-Finkel, losing her in 2021 — one month before their Series A close — and the decision to carry the company forward in her name. Every investor, without coordinating, gave the same answer: "If you're going forward, we're investing." They closed the round three weeks later. He shares what the wilderness has taught him about leadership, the story of closing a funding round from a makeshift chair in the Desert with Leonard Cohen on a Bluetooth speaker, and the one line that now defines how he handles every setback: "It's not a crisis until someone is dying." (00:00) Introduction (01:57) What Is ECOncrete? (04:07) The Biology Behind the Technology (07:14) Discovering the Solution by Accident (08:47) From Research to Global Deployment (12:48) Global Scale and Business Model (14:08) Why Clients Pay for Ecological Infrastructure (19:09) Growing Up in Jerusalem (22:43) What the Wilderness Teaches (29:52) Solitude and Entrepreneurship (31:33) Protecting Time in the Desert (35:09) The Struggles Behind the Story (40:52) Losing Shimrit (44:51) It's Not a Crisis Until Someone Is Dying (46:59) Signs of Recovery in New York's Waters (52:08) The Tottenville Living Breakwater Project (55:27) Retrofitting vs. Building Right (57:11) How to Get Involved (1:03:48) Barclays as a Partner (1:05:21) Closing Reflections (1:07:20) Next Episode Preview

    1hr 9min
  3. Detecting Cancer at Stage Zero from a Simple Urine Test

    19 MAR

    Detecting Cancer at Stage Zero from a Simple Urine Test

    Most cancers are caught too late, and Ryuichi Onose has spent the last seven years trying to change that. His company, Craif, can detect 10 of the most common cancers from a urine sample, before symptoms, before scans can even see anything. Their accuracy for stage one pancreatic cancer sits at 93%, compared to 37% for the standard blood marker test. Ryuichi was 26 and managing ships at Mitsubishi when his grandmother died of stage four colorectal cancer in three weeks. He had no biotech background. He left anyway. Now Craif has sold over 50,000 tests across 2,000 hospitals and 4,600 pharmacies in Japan, raised $60 million, and is expanding into the United States. In this conversation, Ryuichi talks about the science, the business, and what it means to build a company around a problem that keeps getting more personal. His grandfather got sick too. And then, two weeks before we recorded this, his father was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He also shares where he wants to take this next: a toilet that monitors your urine passively, flags changes, and notifies your phone. The goal is to make prevention so frictionless that people don't have to rely on willpower or remembering to book an appointment. (00:00) Introduction (03:48) What Is Craif? (06:30) The Science Behind the Test (11:49) Craif Goes to Market (15:37) The Smart Toilet Vision (17:47) Growth, Scale and AI (19:44) Ryuichi's Origin Story (24:40) When Cancer Gets Personal (28:53) Fate and Coincidence (30:43) Presence, Balance and Fatherhood (36:30) Beyond Cancer: The Bigger Vision (41:53) Bringing Craif to America (45:35) Growing Up as a Misfit (48:34) Leadership and Culture at Craif (51:22) The Hardest Part of the Mission (55:06) How to Get Involved (56:51) Closing Words

    1 hr
  • 3 Episodes

About

Unreasonable Stories is a podcast from Unreasonable Group featuring conversations with entrepreneurs, leaders, and builders working on some of the hardest problems of our time. Hosted by Daniel Epstein, founder of Unreasonable Group, each episode goes beyond the business to hear the real story of the person behind the work, from what drives them and how they got here, to what they've learned along the way.

Information

  • Creator
    Unreasonable Group
  • Years Active
    2k
  • Episodes
    3
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Unreasonable Group
  • Show Website
    Unreasonable Stories

You Might Also Like