The CEO Series

01:16:20

LossDog Co-Founder & CEO Tom Sosnoff: "Every CEO Is...

The CEO Series ·

2026/10/02

In this episode of The CEO Series, Will sits down with Lossdog co-founder and CEO Tom Sosnoff. Tom talks about starting on Wall Street in 1980, moving to Chicago to trade on the CBOE floor, and meeting Scott Sheridan, his business partner of nearly 40 years. He walks through building and selling thinkorswim and tastytrade, including the three-way trade with the Ricketts family that closed the thinkorswim deal. He also covers the $3 million investment that turned Zero Hash around, what he's building

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01:31:41

Spin Master Co-Founder Ronnen Harary on Paw Patrol,...

The CEO Series ·

2026/09/17

In this episode of The CEO Series, Will sits down with Spin Master co-founder and chairman Ronnen Harary. Ronnen walks through the early days of the company, including Earth Buddy, Devil Sticks, and Air Hogs. He also gets into the boom and bust of Bakugan, when sales went from $450 million to a billion and back again. He points to hubris as the real cause and explains how that period led directly to Paw Patrol. He tells the full story of Paw Patrol's inception. He talks about writing his book, No

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01:33:56

Chess.com CEO Erik Allebest on the Netflix...

The CEO Series ·

2026/09/08

In this episode of The CEO Series, Will sits down with Chess.com CEO Erik Allebest. Erik walks through the early days of Chess.com and the two chess businesses he ran before it. He talks about the company's slow, steady growth for over a decade, the surge that came with COVID and Queen's Gambit, and the playbook they built afterward for getting chess into the cultural conversation. He also covers the second spike in 2023, driven by the Hans Niemann lawsuit, short form video, and chess taking off in

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01:31:01

How this investment banker became CEO of a Whiskey...

The CEO Series ·

2026/09/01

In this episode of The CEO Series, Will travels to Vermont to sit down with Alex Roberts, CEO of WhistlePig Whiskey, at the WhistlePig farm. Alex explains how he went from working as a 24-year-old investment banking analyst on a potential sale of WhistlePig to being offered the CFO job himself. He talks about entering the company with no operating experience, dealing with imposter syndrome and the blunt feedback from his CEO that forced him to rethink how he was adding value. Eight years later, Alex

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01:33:30

Mid-Day Squares Co-Founder Jake Karls on How They...

The CEO Series ·

2026/08/20

In this episode of The CEO Series, William Salvi sits down with Jake Karls, co-founder and Chief Rainmaker of Mid-Day Squares. Jake walks through the early version of the business which was three people making 50 to 100 bars a day in a condo kitchen and hand delivering samples with a Polaroid and a handwritten note. He explains how they raised money and built their own manufacturer. Jake talks about why he doesn't believe he is a good manager, his burnout, pitching to Wall Street in shorts and a

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01:25:03

HexClad CEO Danny Winer on building a billion-dollar...

The CEO Series ·

2026/08/06

In this episode of The CEO Series, William Salvi sits down with Danny Winer, co-founder and CEO of HexClad. Danny traces his path from studying theater and film at NYU and moving to Los Angeles with $2,000 and three suitcases, to a car accident at 28 that broke his back, shattered his right leg, and left him six figures in debt with no ability to work. He rebuilt by selling cookware at trade shows, then lost his first company, Juicepresso, in September 2016 at age 50. What became HexClad started in

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01:11:13

Eventbrite Co-Founders Kevin Hartz and Julia Hartz on...

The CEO Series ·

2026/07/30

In this episode of The CEO Series, William Salvi sits down with Kevin Hartz and Julia Hartz, Co-Founders of Eventbrite. Kevin traces his path from the early days of Silicon Valley to co-founding Xoom, a money remittance company that became one of the first developers on the PayPal API and was ultimately acquired by PayPal in 2015 for $1.1 billion. Julia shares how she left a career in television development at MTV and FX to co-found Eventbrite with Kevin. Together they built Eventbrite into one of

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01:29:10

Capital One Co-Founder Nigel Morris on The Idea That...

The CEO Series ·

2026/07/23

In this episode of The CEO Series, William Salvi sits down with Nigel Morris, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of QED Investors and Co-Founder of Capital One. Nigel traces the origins of Capital One, from a working class childhood in England with a military father who moved the family 11 times, to building one of the most disruptive financial services companies in history. He recounts how he and Rich Fairbank identified that the biggest banks in America were making billion dollar decisions by gut

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01:29:10

Capital One Co-Founder Nigel Morris on How He Built...

The CEO Series ·

2026/07/10

In this episode of The CEO Series, William Salvi sits down with Nigel Morris, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of QED Investors and Co-Founder of Capital One. Nigel traces the origins of Capital One, from a working class childhood in England with a military father who moved the family 11 times, to building one of the most disruptive financial services companies in history. He recounts how he and Rich Fairbank identified that the biggest banks in America were making billion dollar decisions by gut

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24:18

ScottsMiracle-Gro CEO Jim Hagedorn On Overcoming...

The CEO Series ·

2026/05/28

In this episode of The CEO Series, William Salvi sits down with Jim Hagedorn, CEO of ScottsMiracle-Gro. Hagedorn opens up about the most turbulent chapter of his career: a $2 billion gamble on the cannabis industry that nearly ran the company into the ground. He discusses the intense pressure of "burning money," the isolation of leadership during a crisis, and the difficult reality of cutting hundreds of millions in operating expenses to keep the business afloat. Hagedorn also shares insights into

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23:29

Vectra AI CEO Hitesh Sheth on AI-Driven Cybersecurity...

The CEO Series ·

2026/05/15

In this episode of The CEO Series, host William Salvi sits down with Hitesh Sheth, CEO of Vectra AI, to discuss the evolving landscape of AI-driven cybersecurity. Sheth explains how Vectra AI protects enterprises across five of the six major attack surfaces and why the network remains the most critical source of truth for security teams. He breaks down why attackers currently have the advantage, how agentic AI is creating new attack vectors that most security tools can't yet see, and what business

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23:32

Pega CEO Alan Trefler: What Chess Taught Me About...

The CEO Series ·

2026/05/14

In this episode of The CEO Series, host William Salvi sits down with Alan Trefler, founder and CEO of Pegasystems, to discuss what it takes to build and lead a company for over four decades. Trefler explains how a frustrating experience consulting for New York banks sparked the vision behind Pega, and why bootstrapping the company from scratch gave him a perspective on business that still shapes how he leads today. He breaks down how chess thinking, specifically the concept of candidate moves,

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21:29

Doppel CEO Kevin Tian on Fighting AI-Driven Social...

The CEO Series ·

2026/05/07

As digital integrity faces an existential threat from AI-driven social engineering, traditional cybersecurity has reached a critical turning point. Attackers are no longer just sending simple phishing emails; they are deploying autonomous AI agents to conduct "vibe phishing". They do this by using deepfakes and fake personas to build rapport and manipulate victims in real-time across multiple channels. To survive this "dystopia" where seeing is no longer believing, organizations must move beyond

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18:29

Why Kai CEO Galina Antova is Rebuilding Cybersecurity...

The CEO Series ·

2026/05/07

As cyberattacks evolve into autonomous, AI-driven threats, the industry has reached its "human limit". Traditional defense strategies—fragmented tools and manual workflows—can no longer keep pace with attackers who can now launch "all attack vectors, all at once". The only way to survive the next generation of threats is to move toward a "machine versus machine" defense. In this episode of the CEO Series, William Salvi sits down with Galina Antova, the Co-Founder and CEO of Kai. After building

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20:14

Bhagwat Swaroop on the AI Trust Paradox and the...

The CEO Series ·

2026/05/07

In this episode of The CEO Series, host William Salvi sits down with Bhagwat Swaroop, President and CEO of Sonatype, to explore how the company is helping organizations build software securely in an era where 90% of code is assembled from open-source libraries rather than written from scratch. Swaroop explains why that shift makes rigorous vulnerability checks essential and how Sonatype's tools give developers the guardrails they need to move fast without introducing risk. The conversation covers

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19:04

Gigamon President & CEO Shane Buckley on...

The CEO Series ·

2026/05/07

In this episode of The CEO Series, host William Salvi sits down with Shane Buckley, CEO of Gigamon, to discuss one of the most impactful yet under-the-radar companies in cybersecurity. Buckley explains how Gigamon's technology sits inside the core of massive networks to detect suspicious patterns and decrypt encrypted traffic, where over 95% of modern threats now hide. He breaks down why lateral movement, not perimeter breaches, is the real battlefield, and why full visibility across physical,

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15:22

Ping Identity CEO Andre Durand on Protecting Your...

The CEO Series ·

2026/05/07

In this episode of the CEO Series, William Salvi sits down with Andre Durand, the CEO of Ping Identity, to discuss the rapidly evolving landscape of digital identity. With over 20 years of experience, Ping Identity protects eight billion accounts for more than half of the Fortune 100, focusing on the core principle that organizations cannot secure what they cannot identify. Durand explains how identity has shifted from simple passwords to managing a complex web of humans, machines, and autonomous

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22:22

Kyle Matthews on transitioning from football to...

The CEO Series ·

2026/04/14

Kyle Matthews grew up in the most decorated football family in NFL history. Four first-round picks. A Hall of Famer. Decades of combined pro careers. He went a different direction. With a team of 25 and a gap in the market he couldn't ignore, Kyle walked away from a top-producing career and built Matthews from the ground up — now the largest privately held commercial real estate brokerage in the country. 31,000 transactions. $78 billion in deals. Zero outside investors. In this episode, we sit down

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20:25

Morningstar CEO Kunal Kapoor on Market Crashes, AI,...

The CEO Series ·

2026/03/19

Everyone wants to know when the market will crash. ‪Morningstar CEO Kunal Kapoor has spent decades analyzing markets, and his answer might surprise you. In this episode of The CEO Series, William Salvi sits down with Kunal to discuss why timing the market rarely works, how Morningstar has evolved into a global financial data powerhouse, and what leaders often underestimate when scaling a company. From an almost 30-year journey at one firm to leading through change, Kunal shares how discipline,

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26:47

How Vita Coco Won The Coconut Water

The CEO Series ·

2026/02/26

"There were a lot of moments that felt like failure," says Mike Kirban, Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Vita Coco. From early supply chain challenges to competing with giants like Coke, building the coconut water category was far from smooth. In this episode of The CEO Series, William Salvi sits down with Mike to talk about taking a simple idea from Brazil and turning it into Vita Coco, navigating the lowest moments of his career, standing up to major beverage players, and what changed when he

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