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David Senra

David Senra

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Conversations with the greatest living founders.© 2025 Senra Show LLC Economia
Episodi
  • Travis Kalanick, Founder of Uber & Atoms

    Travis Kalanick, Founder of Uber & Atoms
    Aug 16 2026
    Travis Kalanick is best known for co-founding Uber and building it into one of the world’s largest transportation platforms. Before Uber, he spent years building Red Swoosh under extreme financial pressure. He says he took no salary for its first four years, repeatedly ran out of money and lost much of his social life to the company before eventually selling it. He later invested much of the proceeds in friends’ startups, becoming the first investor in Expensify. Kalanick started Uber at 33 and carried the intensity of those earlier years into the company. He describes operating with “precision, perfection and obsession” and continued running Uber with the mentality of someone worried about making the next grocery bill even after the company had reached a valuation of roughly $70 billion. Under his leadership, Uber expanded rapidly across cities and countries, creating a new category of app-based transportation and challenging the entrenched taxi systems that controlled many local markets. Uber’s growth depended on empowering young operators to build markets from scratch while maintaining tight control over the decisions that mattered most. Kalanick personally participated in the pricing process for the company’s first 20 to 30 cities, using each launch to refine a playbook that could eventually operate without him. He describes this management philosophy as finding the line between order and chaos: using the fewest possible rules while preserving the structure required to move quickly at scale. After leaving Uber, he returned to company building within months. His current company, Atoms, is developing artificial intelligence and specialized robotics for industries including food, mining and transportation. Kalanick describes his role as “problem solver in chief,” focusing on the most consequential problems that are not already being solved and pursuing what he considers his broader calling: digitizing the physical world. Show notes: https://www.davidsenra.com/episode/travis-kalanick Made possible by Ramp: https://ramp.com AppLovin: https://applovin.com/senra Deel: https://deel.com/senra Chapters (00:00:00) Building Atoms & the Meta Problem of Management (00:03:51) The Appeal of Impossible Problems: Starting Over in China (00:12:19) Uber vs. Didi: Copycats, Hypergrowth & China's Rules (00:21:02) How Network Effects Become an Efficiency Fortress (00:31:48) Capitalism vs. the Taxi Cartel (00:44:05) The China War Goes Global & the Entrepreneur's Capacity for Pain (00:54:04) Life After Uber: Lawfare, Media Narratives & Reputation (00:58:21) What Founders Get Wrong About Venture Capital (01:08:35) The Fundraising Playbook: QED Storytelling & a Five-Room Auction (01:18:38) The Uber Coup, Radical Accountability & Outgrowing Fear (01:26:42) Why Specialized Robots Beat Humanoids at Industrial Scale (01:31:30) Finding Your Sport: Food, Mining & the Physical AI Stack (01:40:14) How to Build Many Companies Inside One Company (01:46:33) Entropy, Civilization & the Meaning of Progress Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 ora e 49 min
  • Lulu Cheng Meservey, Founder of Rostra

    Lulu Cheng Meservey, Founder of Rostra
    Aug 12 2026
    Lulu Cheng Meservey is the founder of Rostra and one of the world's most trusted communication strategists, supporting companies such as Anduril, Shopify, Cognition, and Coinbase. In 2016, she co-founded TrailRunner International with Jim Wilkinson, who had just run corporate affairs for Alibaba's record IPO. She had never done comms in her life. One of her first clients was Anduril, in the company's first year, when Palmer Luckey had just been pushed out of Facebook, and no reporter would give him a fair hearing. So they stopped asking. They went to Quantico, to Camp Pendleton, to the CIA, and showed people the technology directly. She left to run communications at Substack, then joined the board of Activision Blizzard—and in October 2022 stepped off the board and into the company as chief communications officer. Microsoft's $69 billion acquisition was under attack from the FTC. She fought back in public, under her own name, which almost no executive in a deal that size is willing to do. It closed in October 2023. In March 2024, she started her own firm, Rostra, and published Go Direct: The Manifesto. The first project out the door was Cognition's launch of Devin, the first AI software engineer. Shopify put her on its board that June. In December 2025, she raised a $40 million fund to back founders she believes in. She takes about a dozen clients at a time and has a waiting list of hundreds. She named the firm after the Rostra, the speaker's platform in Rome, where a man could climb up while the city believed one thing and step down after it believed another. Show notes: https://www.davidsenra.com/episode/lulu-cheng-meservey Made possible by Ramp: https://ramp.com Deel: https://deel.com/senra AppLovin: https://applovin.com/senra Chapters (00:00:00) From China to America (00:02:08) Learning to Read the Room (00:06:18) Building a Movement (00:07:30) Learning Comms by Doing (00:10:50) Anduril as an Insurgent (00:15:07) The Power of a Manifesto (00:18:47) Go Direct (00:26:45) Conviction Over Charisma (00:31:30) Why Rostra Exists (00:33:23) How AI Leaders Lose Trust (00:40:40) Tell a Better Story (00:47:55) Do Things That Can't Be Faked (00:50:55) The Return to Beauty (00:57:11) Originality Over Templates (01:04:02) Do What Only You Can Do (01:07:14) The Jetsons Rule (01:10:41) Trust Yourself (01:12:29) Why Humans Crave Stories Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 ora e 18 min
  • Michael Ovitz, Co-founder of CAA

    Michael Ovitz, Co-founder of CAA
    Aug 9 2026
    Michael Ovitz⁠ is the co-founder of Creative Artists Agency (CAA), one of the most powerful and influential talent agencies in Hollywood history, built on a revolutionary approach to representation that fundamentally transformed the entertainment industry. He is an entertainment executive and dealmaker widely regarded as one of the most formidable operators in Hollywood. During his time leading CAA, Ovitz represented virtually every major star, including Tom Cruise, Robert De Niro, Meryl Streep, Steven Spielberg, David Letterman, Barbra Streisand and many more. Starting as a mailroom trainee in the 1960s and reshaping the power dynamics of the entire industry by the 1980s, he became known for his relentless strategic thinking, his creation of the "packaging" model that bundled talent for studios, and his ability to orchestrate deals of unprecedented scale and complexity. He built a reputation in entertainment circles through his fierce intelligence, relentless work ethic and his ability to build CAA into what many called "the most powerful company in Hollywood." His major accomplishments include co-founding CAA in 1975 in an audacious break from the establishment, pioneering the packaging system that gave agents unprecedented leverage over studios, orchestrating landmark deals including the sale of Columbia Pictures to Sony, serving as President of The Walt Disney Company and building CAA into a multi-billion dollar enterprise that expanded far beyond traditional talent representation into sports, consulting and global entertainment infrastructure. This is Michael's second time on the podcast. Watch the first episode. Show notes: https://www.davidsenra.com/episode/michael-ovitz-2 Made possible by Ramp: https://ramp.com Deel: https://deel.com/senra AppLovin: https://applovin.com/senra Chapters (00:00:00) Why Michael Ovitz Is Busier Than Ever (00:04:27) Why This Era Is More Exciting Than Hollywood's Golden Age (00:08:45) The Fundamentals of Building Enduring Businesses (00:12:06) How Ovitz Chooses What Deserves His Time (00:14:28) Why Ovitz Refuses to Be Typecast (00:19:43) Japan, Trust & Playing the Long Game (00:20:44) Phil Knight, Nike & the College Football Playoff (00:25:59) Competition, Work Ethic & Winning Without Ego (00:31:33) How Ovitz Outworked 200 Rival Agencies (00:37:51) Protecting the Vision: Scorsese, Rain Man & Great Founders (00:40:37) Josh Kushner & Guarding the Company's Soul (00:43:47) Steve Jobs, Pixar & Building a Culture of Ideas (00:47:20) "He Won, We Lost. Next Case." (00:49:21) Bill Ackman, Universal Music Group & the Future of Music (00:53:08) AI, Music & the Future of Entertainment (00:59:13) Jurassic Park, Spielberg & Using New Technology Well (01:01:10) Why Great Creators Study the Past Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 ora e 7 min
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