Short Bios for Combo Episodes

Week of May 27

Week of May 20

Week of May 13

Week of May 27

Tony Robbins (@TonyRobbins) is an entrepreneur, bestselling author, philanthropist, and the nation’s #1 life and business strategist. He has empowered more than 50 million people from 100 countries around the world through his audio programs, educational videos, and live seminars. He is the author of six international bestsellers, including the #1 New York Times financial bestseller Money: Master the Game and Unshakeable: Your Financial Freedom Playbook. His latest book is Life Force: How New Breakthroughs in Precision Medicine Can Transform the Quality of Your Life and Those You Love.

His philanthropic activities include the 1 Billion Meals Challenge, through which Tony, in partnership with Feeding America, has provided over 850 million meals in the last 7 years with a target of 1 billion meals by 2025. 


Jerry Colonna (@jerrycolonna) is the CEO and co-founder of Reboot.io, an executive coaching and leadership development firm dedicated to the notion that better humans make better leaders. For nearly 20 years, Jerry has used the knowledge he gained as an investor, executive, and board member for more than 100 organizations to help entrepreneurs and others lead with humanity, resilience, and equanimity. He is the author of Reboot: Leadership and the Art of Growing Up and Reunion: Leadership and the Longing to Belong.


Jim Collins (jimcollins.com) is a student and teacher of what makes great companies tick and a Socratic advisor to leaders in the business and social sectors. Having invested more than 25 years in rigorous research, he has authored or coauthored a series of books that have sold more than 10 million copies worldwide. They include Good to Great, the #1 bestseller that examines why some companies make the leap and others don’t (as well as its companion works Turning the Flywheel and Good to Great and the Social Sectors); Built to Last, the enduring classic that reveals why some companies remain visionary for generations; How the Mighty Fall, which delves into how once-great companies can self-destruct; and Great by Choice, which uncovers the leadership behaviors for thriving in chaos and uncertainty.

Jim’s most recent publication is BE 2.0 (Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0), an ambitious upgrade of his very first book, which returns Jim to his original focus on small, entrepreneurial companies and honors his coauthor and mentor, Bill Lazier.


Ed Zschau is an educator, entrepreneur, former member of the US House of Representatives, and a 17-year veteran of the tech industry. He founded System Industries in Palo Alto, California, in 1969, and led it to a successful IPO in 1980 as its CEO. In the 1990s, he was the general manager of the IBM Storage Systems Division headquartered in San Jose, California. Ed taught for 10 years as a professor in the graduate business schools of Stanford University and Harvard University, and he has taught high-tech entrepreneurship courses in the engineering schools at Princeton University, Caltech, and the University of Nevada, Reno.

WEEK OF MAY 20

Dr. Brené Brown (brenebrown.com) is a research professor at the University of Houston, where she holds the Huffington Foundation–Brené Brown Endowed Chair. She is also a visiting professor in management at the University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business.

Brené has spent the past two decades studying courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy and is the author of six #1 New York Times bestsellers: The Gifts of Imperfection, Daring Greatly, Rising Strong, Braving the Wilderness, Dare to Lead, and Atlas of the Heart. Brené hosts the Unlocking Us and Dare to Lead podcasts, and her TED talk The Power of Vulnerability is one of the top five most viewed TED talks in the world, with over 65 million views.


Edward O. Thorp (@EdwardOThorp) is a legendary blackjack player, mathematics professor, and hedge-fund manager, whose hedge funds were profitable every year for 29 years. He is the author of Beat the Dealer, a New York Times bestseller that transformed the game of blackjack, and A Man for All Markets: From Las Vegas to Wall Street, How I Beat the Dealer and the Market. He is a coauthor (with Sheen T. Kassouf) of Beat the Market, which influenced securities markets around the globe.


Greg McKeown (@GregoryMcKeown) is the author of two New York Times bestsellers, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less and Effortless: Make It Easier to Do What Matters Most. Together they have sold more than two million copies in 37 languages. He is also a speaker, host of The Greg McKeown Podcast, and founder of The Essentialism Academy, with students from 96 countries. More than 175,000 people have signed up for his 1-Minute Wednesday newsletter.

Greg earned his MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, and he is currently conducting doctoral research at the University of Cambridge.


Diana Chapman is a co-founder of the Conscious Leadership Group and a co-author of The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership. Her passion is helping organizational leaders and their teams eliminate drama in the workplace and beyond. She has worked with more than 1,000 CEOs and is a facilitator for the Young Presidents Organization (YPO), working with their forums and chapters worldwide. She has been a speaker at TEDx, Mindful Leadership Summit, Wisdom 2.0, Stanford Graduate School of Business, and more.

WEEK OF MAY 13

For more Naval-plus-Tim, check out my wildly popular interview with him from 2015 (nominated for “Podcast of the Year”) and our conversation from 2020. Naval also co-piloted the interviews with Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin and famed investor Chris Dixon.


Nick Kokonas (IG: @nkokonas, TW: @NickKokonas) is the co-owner and co-founder of The Alinea Group, comprising restaurants Alinea, Next, The Aviary, Roister, and St. Clair Supper Club and design firm Crucial Detail.

Alinea is one of only 13 restaurants in the US that has been awarded three Michelin stars. In 2016, it received the James Beard Award for Outstanding Restaurant and was named Best Restaurant in America and tenth best restaurant in the world by Trip Advisor.  

Nick has been featured in Businessweek, Fast Company, The New York Times, and Forbes, among other publications. He is also the founder of Tock, a reservations and CRM system for restaurants, which he sold to Squarespace in 2021 for $400 million.


Dr. Gabor Maté (@DrGaborMate) is a speaker and bestselling author, highly sought after for his expertise on a range of topics that includes addiction, stress, and childhood development. He has written several bestselling books, including the award-winning In the Realm of Hungry GhostsWhen the Body Says NoScattered Minds, and The Myth of Normal. He has also coauthored Hold On to Your Kids. His next book, Hello Again: A Fresh Start for Parents and Their Adult Children is expected in 2025.

Gabor is a member of the Order of Canada and the creator of a psychotherapeutic approach, Compassionate Inquiry, now studied by thousands of therapists, physicians, counselors, and others in over 80 countries.


Dr. BJ Miller is a hospice and palliative care physician, author, and speaker, whose TED Talk “What really matters at the end of life” has been viewed more than 17 million times. BJ is a co-founder of Mettle Health, which provides support and guidance for individuals and families to live well in the face of health challenges. Prior to his work at Mettle Health, BJ served as assistant professor of medicine at UCSF, as a palliative care physician at UCSF Health, and as executive director of Zen Hospice Project. He is a coauthor of A Beginner’s Guide to the End: Practical Advice for Living Life and Facing Death.

The Tim Ferriss Show is one of the most popular podcasts in the world with more than one billion downloads. It has been selected for "Best of Apple Podcasts" three times, it is often the #1 interview podcast across all of Apple Podcasts, and it's been ranked #1 out of 400,000+ podcasts on many occasions. To listen to any of the past episodes for free, check out this page.