Joe Chernov has two IPOs behind him, three CMO seats on his resume, and a job at Battery Ventures — and none of it started with a business degree. It started with his mother, in ninth grade, asking him whether he was going to be a follower his whole life or just for one more day. In this episode of Who Got Me Here, Joe traces a career built on other people betting on him before the credentials caught up. The line at the center of the conversation is Joe’s own: “You just wanna be somebody that’s easy to root for.”
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00:00 — Introducing Joe Chernov
00:40 — Ninth grade, his mother, and Lech Wałęsa
02:40 — Door-to-door with a writing sample → the PR firm
03:30 — “Clean my desk” — the real interview
04:15 — “You just wanna be somebody that’s easy to root for”
04:50 — Brian Kardon: a big budget and a long leash
06:30 — Fred Shilmover: “You belong in the room”
07:40 — Leslie Bradshaw and the Jagger–Richards partnership
09:00 — Mike Volpe: holding an idea against a bigger frame
10:40 — Hillá Watkins: “You put a ceiling over my head”
12:50 — How to break through a wall: you can’t see around corners
15:15 — Beginner’s mind, metaphors, and being your own audience
17:30 — The social media book, Joe Payne, and the Dreamforce session
20:20 — The Hero Grill: creativity applied to friendship
21:50 — Ghosted, then called back — putting ego aside
23:00 — “Why do you spend time with people who can’t help you?”
24:30 — Personal brand and the Leonard Cohen test
25:50 — Make your strengths undeniable / the question beneath the question
28:20 — Battery Ventures: the fountain of youth is learning
30:50 — Lightning round — Joe reacts to his own most-quoted lines
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Molly is a technology executive, advisor, and board member whose resume includes helping both Google and Facebook navigate periods of intense scaling, serving as COO of Lambda School, leading operations at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, and more. Molly credits relationships for opening doors and catapulting her career forward. Her story is packed with lessons on the outsized power of being a friend, how curiosity can forge meaningful relationships quickly, and how to build and make use of a personal council of advisors.
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Rebecca Agostino is an entrepreneur in the world of education, and she’s on a mission to teach the next generation how to build the relationships and durable skills that power career transitions. She has served with Teach for America, helped scale edtech platforms, and at just 25 years old became the founding principal of Freedom Prep High School in Camden, New Jersey. Today, through her company Prentice, she is tackling a gap almost no one is addressing head-on. Networking is one of the most important skills in modern life, and it isn’t taught in school.
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As a 2x CEO with a $640 million exit and early investments in unicorns AppLovin and Chime on his resume, relationships have been essential to Tod’s success. But for him, “networking” isn’t the right word to describe his strategy. It’s all about genuine, meaningful connections, built by bringing people together around shared interests and passions. Our conversation with Tod was packed with insights about the value of being a host, why curation is a relationship-building superpower, and the importance of reminding people you’re still alive.
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Geoffrey Garrett, Dean of the Marshall School of Business at USC and former Dean of the Wharton School, has spent his career at the center of some of the world’s most respected institutions. But in this conversation, he makes a compelling case that even the most established business schools must evolve quickly to meet the demands of the AI age.
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In this episode, Kraig reflects on the people and pivotal moments that shaped his career. From early bets placed on him as a rookie sales engineer, to mentors who opened doors, to colleagues who pushed him to take bold risks, Kraig shares how relationships powered his path from Oracle to founding three companies. He opens up about the leaders who invested in him, why he now pays it forward by spotting future superstars inside his own company, and the simple practices that build lifelong bonds. Kraig also offers grounded advice for early-career professionals: take more risks than you feel comfortable with, lean into emerging technology, never burn bridges, and remember that today’s peers will be tomorrow’s industry leaders.
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Magdalena Yesil was the first investor and founding board member at Salesforce, a company that now has a $200 billion market cap. She is the Founder of Broadway Angles and serves on the SoFi, Smartsheet, and Zuora board. In a conversation with Annie, Magdalena shares her experience breaking into Silicon Valley, including stories about how Steve Jobs and Marc Benioff shaped her career. She describes how persistence and resilience let you take bold steps forward.
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