

The Room Podcast
Claudia Laurie and Madison McIlwain
Welcome to the Room. A series interviewing your favorite tech founders and funders. Our guests were in the room where it happened and they’re sharing their stories.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Dec 22, 2020 • 35min
Episode 6: Amy Nelson of The Riveter
This week, we sat down with Amy Nelson, CEO and founder of The Riveter, a digital and physical community for women. Spending 10 plus years in corporate law, Amy never thought she'd be a founder. However, after the 2016 election, she took a closer look at what mattered most to her - The Riveter was born. While it's been a challenging year for physical spaces, Amy has gallantly persevered by building a growing digital space proving our belief that "the room" is more than four walls. In today's episode, we'll explore insights and themes such as how political and venture fundraising have more in common than you might think, motherhood in the workplace, and core product pivots. Let's open the door.

Dec 15, 2020 • 43min
Episode 5: Shishir Mehrotra of Coda
This week on The Room, we interview Shishir Mehrotra, founder and CEO of Coda. Coda is a venture-backed workflow tool recently valued at over $600 million dollars. With Coda, docs are now as powerful as applications. Although Coda was started in 2014, Coda is more relevant now than ever as a key player in 2020’s “future of work.” Coda is redefining what it means to stay organized, engaged, and effective during COVID-19’s acceleration of a remote-first culture.
In today’s episode, we explore Shishir’s path to building one of the world’s most powerful work tools- where the flexibility of a doc is combined with the power of a spreadsheet and application. We’ll explore insights and themes such as prioritizing opportunities that foster personal growth, the benefits of building a company in stealth, and scaling a distributed workforce and culture well. Let’s open the door.

Dec 8, 2020 • 34min
Episode 4: Jessica Lessin of The Information
This week on The Room, we interview Jessica Lessin, founder of The Information. In Silicon Valley, whenever there is a breaking story, The source that founders, funders, and technologists turn to to get the inside scoop is the subscription-based news-source that Jessica founded in 2013. Jessica has created a platform the tech world can’t get enough of in a world crowded by media coverage and ad-blockers.
In today’s episode, we explore her path to disrupting journalism and how information is consumed in the tech world. We’ll explore insights and themes such as knowing what’s valuable and not giving it away, sustainable growth, and dealing with the hard stuff, like controversy.

Dec 1, 2020 • 38min
Episode 3: Hope Cochran of Madrona Venture Group
This week on The Room, we interview Hope Cochran, managing director at Madrona Venture Group. It's probably easier to ask, what hasn't Hope done? Music and economics at Stanford. Founder and CFO of SkillsVillage, bought by Peoplesoft in 2001. CFO of Clearwire and King Digital. Board member of three public companies, Hasboro, Mongo DB, and New Relic. Today we explore colorful stories of her time in C-suites and boardrooms discussing insights and themes such as advocating for yourself at work, what makes a good board, and the little moments that matter.

Nov 24, 2020 • 40min
Episode 2: Coral Chung of Senreve
This week on The Room, we interview Coral Chung, the CEO, and co-founder of Senreve. Sitting down with Coral to hear about the start of her luxury D2C brand, we learned about the early days of founding an accessories brand in Silicon Valley, her global expansion plans, and a bit about juggling the hats of CEO and mother.

Nov 17, 2020 • 46min
Episode 1: Matt and Swati of Incite
In this episode of The Room podcast, Madison and Claudia spend some time diving into the history of Silicon Valley power couple; Matt Rogers and Swati Mylavarapu - founders of Venture Capital business - Incite. Previously to Incite, Matt Rogers was the co-founder of Nest.
They go into detail about how they have been able to juggle the highs and lows of building a business together while pursuing their own individual passions - all while taking care of each other as a married couple and their growing family.
In this episode, they share their passion for building innovative businesses, developing entrepreneurs and non-profits as well as helping to fund political candidates. These passions played a profound role in shaping the way they built Incite.


