Inspired with Alexa von Tobel

Axion founder Daniel First is building the command center for American manufacturing that detects product failures before they reach customers. His AI-powered observability platform links IoT data, technician reports, and customer feedback across aerospace, medical devices, and consumer products to identify emerging issues manufacturers don't even know exist. Born from watching enterprise AI pilots fail at McKinsey, Axion is architecting customer-centric manufacturing where products iterate in real time based on what's breaking in the field. What You'll Learn: The trillion-dollar quality crisis plaguing American manufacturing and how AI is solving it Why most enterprise AI fails and what makes the rare successes different The future of American manufacturing competing on speed of customer learning How real-time field data is transforming product development cycles Unconventional founder habits that enable exceptional speed and deep thinking Chapters: 2:00 From Orthodox Debates to Independent Thinking3:00 Neuroscience, Philosophy, and Human Flourishing6:00 The Pivot from Academia to Industry7:20 Predicting AI as the Next Cultural Mania8:10 What Axion Actually Does for Manufacturers10:35 The Invisible Quality Crisis Costing Trillions13:30 Surprising Multi-Department Platform Adoption16:02 Surgery Equipment Failure With Two Root Causes16:47 Why Axion's Organization Looks Different18:00 Building an Ecosystem Across Product Lifecycle20:28 How Quality Data Drives Product Innovation21:58 American Manufacturing Winning on Empathy26:00 How Axion Succeeded Where 95% Fail28:50 Why Robotics Will Create More Quality Issues31:10 What Enterprise Leaders Think About AI32:50 Data Centers and Manufacturing Tailwind34:09 The Experimental Mindset Driving Speed36:30 Why 2010s Advice No Longer Applies38:40 The Vertical AI Revolution39:55 Quick-fire Questions Follow Axion and Daniel: • ⁠Axion Website⁠⁠• ⁠Axion LI ⁠⁠• ⁠Daniel LI Follow Inspired:• ⁠Website⁠• ⁠Instagram⁠• ⁠LinkedIn⁠• ⁠X⁠• ⁠Substack

Writer CEO May Habib is building the future of enterprise AI. Born in Lebanon as the oldest of eight kids, May grew up navigating chaos, multiple languages, and cultures, skills that shaped her into a founder willing to challenge assumptions. After pivoting from Qordoba, she built Writer's own foundational models and spent a decade solving real AI problems for Fortune 500 companies. Now leading a $2B+ company, May shares her bold vision for where AI is headed, from self-evolving LLMs that proactively guide us to why work in 2030 will be unrecognizable. What You'll Learn: How growing up as the oldest of eight in a Lebanese family shaped May's leadership style Why Writer focuses on highly regulated industries like healthcare and financial services The critical difference between generative AI and agentic AI How self-evolving AI will proactively prompt you instead of waiting for commands Why execution is going from scarce and expensive to abundant and on-demand What the average knowledge worker's job will look like in 2030 Why narrow job specs are dead and career lattices are the future The two disruptive forces that will make work unrecognizable in 30 years Why May believes there's no AI bubble Chapters: 00:00 Introduction01:50 Growing Up as the Oldest of Eight in an Immigrant Family05:30 Why Language Shapes Who We Become09:05 The Decision to Leave Finance and Start Qordoba12:05 The Risky Pivot from Qordoba to Writer17:45 What Problem Writer Actually Solves for Enterprise21:05 Building Trust at Scale in Regulated Industries24:30 How Writer Stays Maniacally Focused28:10 Writer's Vision for Self-Evolving AI35:00 Why Narrow Job Specs Are Dead37:30 What Work Looks Like in 2030 and the Two Unknowns Shaping the Future39:26 What Most People Misunderstand About AI41:44 The Book That Changed May's Life43:06 Is There an AI Bubble?43:15 May's One-Word Mantra: Forward43:49 How May Manages Stress44:00 Beyond AI: What Excites May the Most Follow Writer and May: • Writer Website • Writer LinkedIn • May's LinkedIn Follow Inspired: • Website • Instagram • LinkedIn • X • Substack

ShopMy co-founders Harry Rein and Tiffany Lopinsky are building the most sophisticated three-sided commerce platform that revolutionizes how creators monetize authentic recommendations, how brands scale through trusted advocates, and how consumers discover products through curated networks they actually trust. Powered by intricate product graph technology and advanced data infrastructure that maps millions of products across retailers, they're architecting the future of commerce driven by intentional curation rather than algorithmic impulse buying. What You'll Learn: Why the "curator economy" matters more than the "creator economy" How their Circles feature creates personalized shopping through trusted networks The product philosophy of minimizing "calories" in user experience design How they thought through scaling ShopMy’s audience Why authentic recommendations outperform traditional performance marketing How complementary co-founder skills drive success The "sweep the floors" mentality that keeps leadership embedded in daily work Chapters:01:53 Intro03:30 From Boston Foodies to Engineering Complementary Backgrounds10:08 The ShopMy Genesis Solving Creator Monetization14:18 Breaking Down ShopMy Three Core Constituencies18:39 Introducing Circles Personalized Shopping Through Trust25:27 The Three Phases of Building ShopMy26:35 Product Philosophy Minimizing Calories in User Experience32:38 Cutting Through the Noise Where Shopping Journeys Begin34:32 Opportunities Scaling Creator Performance Marketing36:25 The Role of AI in Taste and Personalization37:49 From Creator Economy to Curator Economy44:10 Funding Strategy Building for the Long Term46:10 Building the Team The Sweep the Floors Leadership Philosophy52:20 Personal Discoveries What the Founders Buy Through Circles Follow ShopMy: • ShopMy Website: https://shopmy.us/home • ShopMy Linkedin: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/company/shopmy-/ • ShopMy Instagram: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/shopmy/ Follow Inspired and Alexa: • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inspiredcapital/ • Linkedin: ⁠⁠www.linkedin.com/company/inspired-capital-partners/ • X: https://x.com/inspiredcap • Website: ⁠⁠https://www.inspiredcapital.com/

Dr. Becky Kennedy from Good Inside shares her journey from private practice psychologist to building the #1 consumer parenting tool on the planet. She reveals how blending emotional connection with practical action helps parents raise resilient kids and become sturdier themselves. What You’ll Learn: • How Dr. Becky built Good Inside into a global parenting movement • The secret to becoming a “sturdy parent” and raising resilient kids • Why parenting feels hard even for good parents and how to navigate it with confidence • How to break cycles of shame and foster deep connection at home • The lessons Dr. Becky learned while scaling a mission-driven brand • Good Inside’s future Chapters: 0:00 Intro 1:58 Becky’s Origin Story 5:34 Parenting Genres of Our Generation 9:38 Early Career and Education 14:11 Internal Family Systems (IFS) Explained 17:19 Private Practice to Parenting Work 21:15 Instagram and the First Viral Posts 27:39 Founding Good Inside 30:34 Parenting as the Last Frontier 39:15 The Good Inside App and Vision 52:30 Broader Societal Impact of Parenting 56:04 Two Mantras Dr.Becky Uses 59:30 One Habit Dr. Becky Does Follow Dr. Becky and Good Inside: • Instagram: https://bit.ly/3H9UWIa • Website: https://www.goodinside.com/ Follow Inspired and Alexa: • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/inspiredcapital • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/inspired-capital-partners • X: https://x.com/InspiredCap • Website: https://www.inspiredcapital.com/

What if we could predict infrastructure failures before they happen instead of scrambling to fix them after disaster strikes? Serial entrepreneur Alex Hawkinson quips that the Romans would be laughing at us if they saw our current approach to managing the critical systems that power our world. Known as the father of IoT for creating SmartThings—a platform supporting over one billion connected devices before its acquisition by Samsung—Alex is now tackling his most ambitious challenge yet: awakening America's crumbling infrastructure through physical AI. With nearly 500,000 sensors already deployed across water, energy, and essential services, BrightAI is shifting entire industries from reactive maintenance to proactive intelligence. In this episode, Alex shares how BrightAI's observability layer creates an unbreakable competitive moat, how his "swing big" philosophy attracts world-class talent, and why transforming infrastructure management represents humanity's next great technological leap forward.

With software powering every aspect of our lives, when does quality testing shift from a nicety to an absolute necessity? Despite the stakes, most companies fail to test everything—and even fewer automate their QA processes—leaving critical systems vulnerable to catastrophic bugs. Jon Perl is on a mission to change that. In 2019, he launched QA Wolf to help hundreds of companies automate 80% of their quality assurance processes, accelerating release cycles fivefold and saving customers over $100 million annually. By disrupting the outdated, manual QA status quo, QA Wolf empowers teams to ship faster and more confidently, delivering innovation without compromise. In this episode, Jon shares how a tech mistake sparked the idea for QA Wolf, how they settled on a pricing model that aligns incentives with their customers, and why he believes human-in-the-loop will remain essential until AI achieves flawless accuracy.