Whether it’s moderating a live panel discussion, managing your (virtual) All Hands meeting, or even guiding a cross-functional team to a decision in an important meeting, mastering the art of helping a group communicate is a critical skill for many of us. In this episode from November 2020, expert communications and presentations coach Matt Abrahams, who is also a lecturer at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, sits down with Sonal Choksi to share frameworks, strategies and many concrete tips for how anyone can become a better moderator and facilitator. They cover everything from how to approach prep work (like, can you be too prepared?) and how to handle disruptions on the fly to the subtle differences between in-person and virtual events, the ways our own ticks can manifest before an audience, and more. 

In this episode from December 2018, Hennessy, currently the chairman of Alphabet as well as Turing Award-winning computer scientist, joins a16z co-founder Marc Andreessen, a16z general partner Martin Casado, and host Sonal Choksi for a wide-ranging conversation about moving from academia to startups, the history of Silicon Valley, the “Stanford model”, how to build enduring organizations, and more. Hennessy also co-founded startups, including one based on pioneering microprocessor architecture used in 99% of devices today (for which he and his collaborator won the prestigious Turing Award)... so what did it take to go from research/idea to industry/implementation? And  how has the overall relationship and "divide" between academia and industry shifted, especially as the tech industry itself has changed? Finally, in his book, Leading Matters, Hennessy shares some of the leadership principles he's learned, offering nuanced takes on topics like humility (needs ambition), empathy (without contravening fairness and reason), and others. What does it take to build not just tech, but a successful organization?