A show about leaders who move fast. Hosted by Peregrine Badger at Fifty Years. Fifty Years is a venture capital firm backing founders using technology to solve the world’s biggest problems.
We back founders working on climate change, health, free speech, affordable housing, and other global problems. When you’re working on problems like this, there’s a particular sense of urgency. Shipping faster means saving lives, preventing extinctions, and creating a future worth living for.
We interview leaders who move fast and ask them what they did and how they did it, with the goal of bringing their strategies and tactics to bear on the world’s biggest problems.
All Episodes
Keenan, Keller Rinaudo, and Ryan Oksenhorn cofounded Zipline in 2014 and in 2021 became a $2.75B company that has saved tens of thousands of lives and raised $490M. Zipline now delivers medical supplies in >5 countries to communities of tens of millions of people. In Rwanda, 75% of blood deliveries outside the capital use Zipline. They've overcome flying in storms, deploying 9000 miles away, and managing safety-critical logistics. Hear from Keenan how they've relentlessly iterated to build a novel robotics system that solves an incredibly important problem! If you enjoy our podcast, please share with a friend who'd enjoy too! 👋🏼 Reach Keenan at Zipline: 💻 Web - https://flyzipline.com/ 👥 LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/keenanwyrobek/ 👋🏼 Reach Peregrine: Thinking about starting a company? Want to work on something deeply meaningful? Annoyed I say 'like' so much?' Would love to hear from you! 🥳 👥 Linkedin - linkedin.com/in/pbadger/ 🐦 Twitter - twitter.com/PeregrineBadger 🙏 LEAVE A REVIEW Enjoyed listening? Consider a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts to help folks discover the show 😊 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/speed/id1649845905
Matthias Meiner, Daniel Wiegand, Sebastian Born, and Patrick Nathen co-founded Lilium Aerospace in 2015 to transform transportation with EVTOL planes. Since then, they've grown to 800 people, raised almost a billion dollars, and shipped over 10 flying prototypes, iterating far faster than a traditional aerospace program.On the show, Matthias shares tales of engineering scrappiness like 3D printing drones and convincing future suppliers to donate parts. Matthias also shares his philosophy on hiring for speed, growing organizations, and creating urgency. If you enjoy, please share with a friend who'd enjoy too!👋🏼 Reach Matthias and Lilium:💻 Web - https://lilium.com/📩 Email - info@lilium.com👥 LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthiasmeiner/ 👋🏼 Reach Peregrine:Thinking about starting a company? Want to work on something deeply meaningful? Annoyed I say 'like' so much?' Would love to hear from you! 🥳👥 Linkedin - linkedin.com/in/pbadger/🐦 Twitter - twitter.com/PeregrineBadger 🙏 LEAVE A REVIEWHad fun listening? Consider a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts to help folks discover the show 😊https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/speed/id1649845905
Calvin, Peter, Ilya, and Ian built the prototype that became Segment in Dec 2012, after 24 months of trying different ideas and spending $500k. Eight years later, @Twilio acquired Segment for $3.2B. Segment now helps 25,000 companies get customer data into >800 different tools to analyze it. They process roughly a trillion API calls per month. Hear from Calvin about their founding journey, and some of the great stories illustrating how Segment moves fast. Plus, hear how Calvin thinks about levels of insight in searching for new startup ideas.If you enjoy, please share with a friend who'd enjoy too! 👋🏼 Reach Calvin:💻 Web - https://calv.info/👥 LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/calvinfo/ 👋🏼 Reach Peregrine:Thinking about starting a company? Want to work on something deeply meaningful? Annoyed I say 'like' so much?' Would love to hear from you! 🥳👥 Linkedin - linkedin.com/in/pbadger/🐦 Twitter - twitter.com/PeregrineBadger 🙏 LEAVE A REVIEWHad fun listening? Consider a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts to help folks discover the show 😊https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/speed/id1649845905
John and Ryan McLinko started Astranis in 2015. Both had spent time in traditional aerospace, and they were excited to build a company that would deliver internet to billions of people, at a pace that would make traditional companies blush. Astranis is now a company worth more than $1B and is gearing up for deployments that will deliver internet to millions of people in communities in Alaska and Peru. They build on timecycles 2-7x faster than traditional companies, with smaller teams, faster iteration, and more software powering their satellites. Hear from John about their journey, and some of the great stories illustrating how Astranis moves fast, while also ensuring extremely high reliability on satellites shipped to space.If you enjoy, please share with a friend who'd enjoy too! 👋🏼 Reach John and Astranis:💻 Web - https://www.astranis.com/📩 Email - john@astranis.com👥 LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/johngedmark/ 👋🏼 Reach PeregrineThinking about starting a company? Want to work on something deeply meaningful? Annoyed I say 'like' so much?' Would love to hear from you! 🥳👥 Linkedin - linkedin.com/in/pbadger/🐦 Twitter - twitter.com/PeregrineBadger 🙏 LEAVE A REVIEWHad fun listening? Consider a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts to help folks discover the show 😊https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/speed/id1649845905
Chris and Hamish McKenzie started Substack in 2017, after Chris wrote a manifesto on everything wrong with the internet. They’ve connected thousands of writers to more than a million paid subscribers. Substack is now a global brand, and so popular that we’ve heard folks say “I saw it on a Substack” when referring to a non-substack email newsletter. They’ve launched >20 major features and iterated on dozens more. Substack got to 7k subscribers in the first few months of the company, and has 3x’d paid subscribers every single year.If you enjoy, please share with a friend who'd enjoy too! 👋🏼 Reach Chris and Substack:💻 Web - https://substack.com/📩 Email - press@substackinc.com👥 LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/cjgbest/ 👋🏼 Reach PeregrineThinking about starting a company? Want to work on something deeply meaningful? Annoyed I say 'like' so much?' Would love to hear from you! 🥳👥 Linkedin - linkedin.com/in/pbadger/🐦 Twitter - twitter.com/PeregrineBadger 🙏 LEAVE A REVIEWHad fun listening? Consider a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts to help folks discover the show 😊https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/speed/id1649845905
Fifty Years is launching SPEED, a show about leaders who move fast! We started this show to bring the fastest strategies and tactics to bear on the world's biggest problems! Episode #2 is with Erik Schluntz of Cobalt Robotics. Erik and his cofounder Travis started in 2016, on a quest to bring useful robots into human spaces, fast. They went from nothing to a first mobile robot prototype in 2 weeks, and a working robot at a paying customer site in 12 months. We dive into what speed means to Erik, and what the team did early on to become successful. We hear about the team's many prototypes over the first year, engineering culture, how they cut scope to accelerate, and so much more!If you enjoy, please share with a friend who'd enjoy too! 👋🏼 Reach Erik and Cobalt:💻 Web - https://www.cobaltrobotics.com/📩 Email - eschluntz@gmail.com👥 LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/erik-schluntz-530a9053/ 👋🏼 Reach PeregrineThinking about starting a company? Want to work on something deeply meaningful? Annoyed I say 'like' so much?' Would love to hear from you! 🥳👥 Linkedin - linkedin.com/in/pbadger/🐦 Twitter - twitter.com/PeregrineBadger 🙏 LEAVE A REVIEWHad fun listening? Consider a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts to help folks discover the show 😊https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/speed/id1649845905
Fifty Years is launching SPEED, a show about leaders who move fast! We started this show to bring the fastest strategies and tactics to bear on the world's biggest problems! Episode #1 is with Deepika Bodapati of Athelas. Deepika and her cofounder Tanay started in 2016, college dropouts wanting to bring cheap blood tests to everyone. They’ve helped more than 150,000 patients and built a $1.5B company! If you enjoy, please share with a friend who'd enjoy too! 👋🏼 Reach Deepika and Athelas:💻 Web - athelas.com📩 Email - deepika@athelas👥 LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/deepika-bodapati-10229773/ 👋🏼 Reach PeregrineThinking about starting a company? Want to work on something deeply meaningful? Annoyed I say 'like' so much?' Would love to hear from you! 🥳👥 Linkedin - linkedin.com/in/pbadger/🐦 Twitter - twitter.com/PeregrineBadger 🙏 LEAVE A REVIEWHad fun listening? Consider a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts to help folks discover the show 😊https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/speed/id1649845905