On this week's episode of Silicon Valley Impact, we're joined by Ben Stein, Founder and General Partner at Cartography Capital, and Zach Betts, General Partner at Zandia Ventures.

Benjamin Stein is the Founder and General Partner of Cartography Capital, a deep tech venture firm investing in founders building at the intersection of infrastructure, sustainability, and emerging technologies. Before launching the firm, Ben was an operator, joining Square around employee #120 through its IPO and helping scale Opendoor from three to more than 20 markets. An active angel investor since 2017, he made one of the earliest investments in Teamshares, the employee ownership platform now publicly traded on Nasdaq (TMS). Ben lives and invests in San Francisco and is based out of Oakland.

Zach Betts is the General Partner at Zandia Ventures, a Bay Area-based investor-operator focused on accelerating startups across technology and life sciences. With more than 25 years of leadership experience, Zach advises founders, investors, and innovation ecosystems on commercial strategy, partnerships, capital planning, and operational growth. His work centers on helping breakthrough healthcare, medical device, and AI companies transform innovative ideas into scalable, market-ready businesses.

This and much more on Silicon Valley Impact.

Follow and subscribe:

🎙️ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/68L4RPfMizjxnKBsmcFb1J

🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/silicon-valley-impact/id1776876823

📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@siliconvalleyimpact

Silicon Valley Venture, LLC, the parent company of Silicon Valley Impact, is proud to partner with MoralesHR, STAK Ventures, and 1900 Broadway Tower in Oakland.

Visit https://moraleshr.com/ and https://stakspace.com/ to learn more about one of the world's largest full-stack venture ecosystems—more than 1.5 million square feet of Live, Work, Play, and Go. Designed for innovators, investors, senior executives, institutional partners, and global talent, it's built to provide the access, alignment, and acceleration needed to grow world-changing ventures.

📍 STEP San Francisco — August 27, 2026 Use promo code SVV20 and register here: https://lnkd.in/gTuYJPeA

📍 One Way Summit 2026 — October 28, 2026 Join the waitlist on Luma: https://lnkd.in/gVsa23gj

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by the host and guests of Silicon Valley Impact are for informational and entertainment purposes only and should not be considered financial, legal, or investment advice. Please consult a qualified professional before making financial or business decisions.

On this week's episode of Silicon Valley Impact we are talking with Kirby Harris, Co-Founder at Base Ventures; and Scott Swanson, Founder & CEO of Bonder about The Art of Investing and Building in Silicon Valley.

Kirby is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Base Ventures, a Berkeley, CA based early-stage venture firm investing in 120+ companies including unicorns 6sense, Gecko Robotics, and Genies, with a portfolio valued over $11 billion. A Morehouse College graduate and Kauffman Fellow, Kirby brings over two decades of venture capital and private equity experience, including leadership roles in Community aligned investing and project finance. Kirby excels at identifying and supporting founders to scale transformative ideas into enduring companies.

Scott is the Founder and CEO of Bonder, the world’s first patented connection engine for the physical world. Bonder is a connective layer for everywhere you go. A store, a venue, a social space. It links the people, staff, departments, offers, and commerce within, in real time, with precision and purpose. Venues reach their guests directly. People get VIP treatment everywhere they go, with instant access to the right people, the right offers, the right moment. What Google built for searching, Bonder is building for connection. Scott spent two decades immersed in Global Infrastructure and Technology within Silicon Valley before founding Bonder. He also trained for over 20 years under Kobun Chino Otogawa Roshi, the same teacher who guided and was a mentor to Steve Jobs. Bonder’s mission is to build the most advanced and accurate connection engine in the world, and restore the human experience to healthy interaction beyond data collection, ads or intrusive behavior.

This and much more on Silicon Valley Impact!

Follow us on and listen to all our episodes on:

🎙️Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/68L4RPfMizjxnKBsmcFb1J

🍎Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/silicon-valley-impact/id1776876823

📺 Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@siliconvalleyimpact

Silicon Valley Venture, LLC, the parent company of Silicon Valley Impact, is a proud global venture partner to great companies, MoralesHR and STAK Ventures, and 1900 Broadway Tower - Oakland. Check out https://moraleshr.com/ and https://stakspace.com/ to gain access to the worlds largest full stack venture ecosystem. It's over 1.2 million square feet of Live, Work, Play, Go; everything innovators, investors, ecosystem influencers, institutional partners, and global talent needs to gain a global advantage, access, alignment, and accelerate your venture.

Event Partnerships:

Join us in San Francisco on August 27th, 2026 for Step. Use promo code SVV20 and get your tickets here: https://lnkd.in/gTuYJPeA

On this week's episode of Silicon Valley Impact, we sit down with three remarkable innovators shaping the future of fashion, entrepreneurship, accessibility, and technology: Azadeh Riaz, Founder and CEO of House of Azadeh; Ella Shukho, a venture ecosystem leader and startup growth strategist; and Zain Samdani, co-founder of Exoheal and Please Touch This Art.

Azadeh is an internationally recognized fashion designer, entrepreneur, and creative visionary with more than 35 years of experience in luxury fashion. After beginning her career designing couture for the Saudi Royal Family, she became the original designer behind Bebe's signature aesthetic, helping transform the company into a nationally recognized public brand. Today, she leads House of Azadeh, a modern luxury retail concept with boutiques in San Francisco and Los Altos, and is the creator of CLOH, an AI-powered platform designed to help people build intentional wardrobes and reconnect with the art of dressing.

Ella is a venture ecosystem leader and partnership strategist who specializes in connecting founders, investors, and enterprise organizations to create growth opportunities. Her experience includes leading partnership initiatives at Alma and managing 500 Global's flagship accelerator program, where she worked with high-growth startups across AI, enterprise software, healthtech, cloud computing, and other emerging technologies. She is passionate about helping innovative companies scale through strategic relationships and ecosystem development.

Zain is an entrepreneur, innovator, and advocate for accessible technology. He is the co-founder of Please Touch This Art, a startup making visual art more accessible for blind and visually impaired individuals through tactile experiences and inclusive design. He is also the co-founder of Exoheal, an assistive robotics company developing AI-powered wearable technology to help stroke survivors and individuals with hand paralysis regain mobility and independence. His work has earned international recognition, including a Microsoft Imagine Cup World Championship, The Diana Award, and the Gold Award at the World Government Summit in Dubai.

Join us as we explore entrepreneurship, innovation, accessibility, venture capital, AI, fashion, and the power of building products that create meaningful impact.

This and much more on Silicon Valley Impact.

Follow us on and listen to all our episodes on:

🎙️Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/68L4RPfMizjxnKBsmcFb1J

🍎Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/silicon-valley-impact/id1776876823

📺 Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@siliconvalleyimpact

Silicon Valley Venture, LLC, the parent company of Silicon Valley Impact, is a proud global venture partner to great companies, MoralesHR and STAK Ventures, and 1900 Broadway Tower - Oakland. Check out https://moraleshr.com/ and https://stakspace.com/ to gain access to the worlds largest full stack venture ecosystem. It's over 1.2 million square feet of Live, Work, Play, Go; everything innovators, investors, ecosystem influencers, institutional partners, and global talent needs to gain a global advantage, access, alignment, and accelerate your venture.

Event Partnerships:

Join us in San Francisco on August 27th, 2026 for STEP. Use promo code SVV20 and get your tickets here: https://luma.com/StepSF26?tk=yMvcCv

Join us in San Francisco on October 28th, 2026 for One Way Summit 2026. Go to Luma to learn more and get on the waitlist before tickets are released: https://luma.com/onewaysummit2026

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by the host and guests on Silicon Valley Impact are for entertainment purposes only and should not be considered financial advice or a solicitation. Listeners are encouraged to consult with a professional before making any financial or business decisions.

On this week's episode of Silicon Valley Impact, we sit down with Darnell Adler, Founder and CEO of Lifeline AI and Red Bull Basement World Champion 2026; Felipe Gurgel, Principal at Actions Capital; and Ziv Lautman, PhD, a researcher, entrepreneur, and educator working at the intersection of human physiology, wearable technology, and artificial intelligence.

Darnell Adler is the Founder and CEO of Lifeline AI and the Red Bull Basement World Champion 2026. His mission is bold but simple: to become the global standard for how people call for help.

Through Lifeline AI, Darnell is reimagining emergency reporting infrastructure from the ground up—building technology that is discreet by design, immediate by nature, and focused on making the world safer for everyone.

Raised in San Francisco and educated at the University of Southern California, Darnell developed a passion for solving real-world problems through innovation. Surrounded by builders, entrepreneurs, and visionaries, he embraced the challenges of entrepreneurship and learned the resilience required to turn ambitious ideas into reality.

Today, he is combining technology, purpose, and perseverance to build solutions that have the potential to save lives on a global scale.

Felipe Levi Gurgel is an investor, operator, and startup enthusiast with a passion for helping founders build and scale transformative companies. He is currently a Principal at Actions Capital, where he invests in startups across AI, healthcare, and fintech.

Before transitioning into venture investing, Felipe spent more than a decade building and growing startups, including serving as one of the earliest employees at Wellhub (formerly Gympass), one of the world's leading corporate wellness platforms. Originally from Brazil and now based in the Bay Area, he brings a unique perspective shaped by both operating and investing, with a strong focus on connecting founders, investors, and opportunities that drive innovation.

Ziv Lautman, PhD, is a researcher, entrepreneur, and educator working at the intersection of human physiology, wearable technology, and artificial intelligence. He completed his doctoral training in the lab of Michael Snyder at Stanford University, where he developed personalized, interpretable AI models that leverage continuous biometric data for early disease detection and dynamic health monitoring.

Ziv currently teaches Stanford's popular Engineering Wellness course (CHPR 267) and is a recipient of both the Stanford Human-Centered AI Fellowship and the Stanford Graduate Fellowship in Science and Engineering.

Prior to Stanford, he co-founded an environmental health technology company focused on large-scale air quality prediction. Following its acquisition by Google, the company became a global leader in air pollution modeling, building partnerships with Fortune 500 organizations and helping bring air quality insights to billions of devices worldwide.

This and much more on Silicon Valley Impact!

Follow us and listen to all our episodes on:

🎙️ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/68L4RPfMizjxnKBsmcFb1J

🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/silicon-valley-impact/id1776876823

📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@siliconvalleyimpact

Silicon Valley Venture, LLC, the parent company of Silicon Valley Impact, is proud to partner with MoralesHR, STAK Ventures, and 1900 Broadway Tower Oakland.

Visit https://moraleshr.com/ and https://stakspace.com/ to gain access to one of the world's largest full-stack venture ecosystems. With more than 1.2 million square feet dedicated to Live, Work, Play, and Go, the platform provides innovators, investors, senior executives, institutional partners, and global talent with the access, alignment, resources, and relationships needed to accelerate growth and gain a competitive advantage.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by the host and guests on Silicon Valley Impact are for entertainment purposes only and should not be considered financial advice or a solicitation. Listeners are encouraged to consult with qualified professionals before making any financial, investment, or business decisions.

On this week's episode of Silicon Valley Impact, we bring together three exceptional leaders at the forefront of sales, partnerships, growth, AI, and executive performance.

Nicole Ward is Senior Vice President of Sales at Aon, founder of the Executive Athlete platform, author of Biohacking for the Sales Athlete, and host of both the Aon at the Top and Executive Athlete podcasts. Nicole helps executives, board members, and C-suite leaders optimize their performance by exploring the intersection of leadership, physiology, and resilience. Her work challenges traditional thinking by positioning the body as a critical component of strategy, decision-making, and sustained executive success.

Gayathri Padmanabhan leads North America Partnerships at ElevenLabs, one of the world's fastest-growing AI companies. With more than a decade of experience building and scaling strategic partner ecosystems at organizations including Freshworks and Intercom, Gayathri has consistently transformed partnerships into powerful growth engines, helping companies accelerate adoption, revenue, and market expansion.

Danilo Campisi is an investor, growth strategist, and Senior Strategic Enterprise Partnerships leader at Uber, where he works with some of the world's largest Fortune 500 companies. With more than 15 years of experience spanning technology, AI, marketing, and business growth, Danilo has helped scale organizations from startup to global enterprise. A member of the founding team at AirHelp, he later held leadership roles at Kiwi.com and Meta, where he advised major brands on digital transformation and AI-powered growth strategies. He also serves on the advisory board of the University of San Francisco's Strategic AI Program.

Join us for a dynamic conversation covering leadership, artificial intelligence, strategic partnerships, performance optimization, innovation, and what it takes to build and scale organizations in today's rapidly evolving business environment.

And don't miss our spontaneous exercise: "Launch the Water Company." Tune in as Nicole, Gayathri, Danilo and Brian Sparkes take on the challenge of going to market from three completely different perspectives—Sales, Partnerships, and Go-to-Market Strategy—revealing how world-class operators think about turning a simple product into a scalable business.

This and much more on Silicon Valley Impact!

Follow us on and listen to all our episodes on:

🎙️Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/68L4RPfMizjxnKBsmcFb1J

🍎Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/silicon-valley-impact/id1776876823

📺 Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@siliconvalleyimpact

Silicon Valley Venture, LLC, the parent company of Silicon Valley Impact, is a proud global venture partner to great companies, MoralesHR and STAK Ventures, and 1900 Broadway Tower - Oakland. Check out https://moraleshr.com/ and https://stakspace.com/ to gain access to the worlds largest full stack venture ecosystem. It's over 1.2 million square feet of Live, Work,

On this week’s episode of Silicon Valley Impact, we sit down with Tess Robinson, Managing Partner at FTB Capital Group, where she leads the Longevity Fund — investing in startups at the intersection of innovation, inclusion, impact, and human wellbeing.

Tess believes the best companies are built by founders who prioritize longevity over burnout.

Based in the Bay Area, Tess creates spaces for honest conversations around entrepreneurship and sustainable company building. Through HER Connections, she provides fractional COO and CMO support to founders seeking scalable operational systems without the overhead of full-time executives.

Her work focuses on helping startups build sustainable infrastructure while protecting founder wellness — because growth should never come at the expense of health.

As the founder of Pacific Standard Co., Tess is also launching Silicon Valley’s first Founder Total Performance Accelerator, built on the belief that elite performance and long-term wellbeing can coexist.

She also co-hosts Answering AI with Joe Vazquez — a podcast designed to help everyday listeners better understand AI without needing to be deeply embedded in the tech world.

This and much more on Silicon Valley Impact.

Follow and listen here:

🎙️ Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/68L4RPfMizjxnKBsmcFb1J 🍎 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/silicon-valley-impact/id1776876823 📺 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@siliconvalleyimpact

Silicon Valley Venture, LLC — the parent company of Silicon Valley Impact — is proud to partner globally with MoralesHR, STAK Ventures, and 1900 Broadway Tower Oakland.

Learn more: 🔗 https://moraleshr.com/ 🔗 https://stakspace.com/

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by hosts and guests on Silicon Valley Impact are for entertainment purposes only and should not be considered financial advice or a solicitation. Please consult a qualified professional before making financial or business decisions.

On this week's episode of Silicon Valley Impact we have Mala Ramakrishnan, Managing Partner of Progressive Ventures; and Manan Mehta, Co-Founder and General Partner of Unshackled Ventures.

Mala is a founder, venture capitalist, and product executive focused on AI, enterprise SaaS, and emerging technologies. As Founder and Managing Partner of Progressive Ventures, she invests in high-growth startups across ecosystems including YC, StartX, and SkyDeck, with portfolio companies such as Anthropic, xAI, and Perplexity AI.

A multi-exit entrepreneur and operator, Mala has spent more than two decades building and scaling products and companies from 0-to-1 and 1-to-100. She has held leadership roles at Meta, Cloudera, Oracle, Veeva Systems, and Ethyca, while also co-founding and exiting multiple ventures deployed at Fortune 500 scale.

In addition to investing and operating, Mala is the founder of Founders Creative, a Silicon Valley AI community of 18,000+ builders, a contributor to Forbes Business Council, and a member of Stanford Women on Boards. She is known for her operator-first mindset, strategic product leadership, and passion for helping founders scale transformative technologies.

Manan is the Co-Founder and General Partner of Unshackled Ventures, a pioneering venture fund built to support immigrant founders navigating the complexities of building startups in the United States. A former founder and CEO whose social media company was acquired by Smule, Manan co-founded Unshackled Ventures to remove immigration barriers for entrepreneurs by providing visa, legal, and employment infrastructure that enables founders to start companies from day one.

Known for investing at the earliest stages—often pre-product, pre-revenue, and even pre-incorporation—Manan backs founders based on execution ability, resilience, and personal connection to the problems they are solving rather than traditional traction metrics. He is widely respected for his unwavering support of immigrant entrepreneurs and for viewing global talent as one of America’s greatest competitive advantages.

Beyond capital, Manan emphasizes the human side of entrepreneurship, positioning Unshackled as both an investment partner and a support system for founders navigating the emotional realities of building a company. He is also deeply committed to authentic community building, founder trust, and cultivating diverse, high-performing teams across the venture ecosystem.

This and much more on Silicon Valley Impact!

Follow us on and listen to all our episodes on:

🎙️Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/68L4RPfMizjxnKBsmcFb1J

🍎Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/silicon-valley-impact/id1776876823

📺 Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@siliconvalleyimpact

Silicon Valley Venture, LLC, the parent company of Silicon Valley Impact, is a proud global venture partner to great companies, MoralesHR and STAK Ventures, and 1900 Broadway Tower - Oakland. Check out https://moraleshr.com/ and https://stakspace.com/ to gain access to the worlds largest full stack venture ecosystem. It's over 1.2 million square feet of Live, Work, Play, Go; everything innovators, investors, ecosystem influencers, institutional partners, and global talent needs to gain a global advantage, access, alignment, and accelerate your venture.

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed by the host and guests on Silicon Valley Impact are for entertainment purposes only and should not be considered financial advice or a solicitation. Listeners are encouraged to consult with a professional before making any financial or business decisions.