He walked back to his apartment and found 50 sticky notes on the door. "Sorry we missed your package."

That problem became a $1.5 billion company competing directly with UPS and FedEx.

Itamar Zur, Co-Founder and CEO of Veho, shares the full story of building one of the most disruptive logistics companies in America from a business school dorm room to 65 markets, nearly 1,000 employees, tens of thousands of drivers, and over $300 million raised from General Catalyst, SoftBank, and Tiger Global.

In this conversation, Itamar opens up about what it really took: obsessing over the Day One customer experience in a way most founders never do, rebuilding the company's values from scratch after 2022 nearly broke everything, and creating a deliberate program to identify and invest in top performers before someone else does.

If you're building a company and want to understand what championship-level execution actually looks like from the inside, this episode is worth your time.

Takeaways:

1. Obsess Over the Day One Experience: Itamar would send detailed end-of-day reports not just to his buyer but to the CEO, CMO, and CFO of every new customer anyone whose email he could find. By the next call, those buyers weren't asking how things were going. They were asking what other markets Veho could go to. First impressions compound.
2. Values Must Evolve as the Company Evolves: Veho launched with human-first, idealistic values. When the market turned in 2022 and performance management became non-negotiable, those values created internal friction. Itamar rebuilt them from scratch around a championship team mentality. The wrong people left. The right people finally had language for what they had been doing all along.
3. Your 10X People Know They Are 10X Invest in Them Before Someone Else Does: High performers don't complain, don't ask silly questions at all-hands, and quietly deliver results every single day.
4. The Co-Founder Decision Is the Most Important One You Will Make: Two original co-founders left over a fundamental strategic disagreement. Itamar refused to compromise on the vision, finding Fred one person he had met once at a conference changed the entire trajectory of the company.
5. This Is a Marathon Protect the Runner: When the market shifted, the mental and physical toll hit all at once. He now meditates, exercises, sleeps 7–8 hours, and treats it the same way a professional athlete treats training. Everything else depends on it.

Quote of the Show: "The way you do anything is the way you do everything." - Itamar Zur, Co-Founder & CEO, Veho

Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/itamarzur/
Veho Website: https://www.shipveho.com/

Chapters:
00:00 – Intro: From a sticky note to a $1.5B logistics company
01:19 – The one thing: obsessing over the Day One customer experience
05:30 – Sending reports to the CEO, CMO, and CFO why it worked
09:45 – The moment of truth: lessons from Procter & Gamble
14:20 – Veho's original values and why they had to change 18:05 – Championship team mentality: rebuilding culture mid-flight
22:40 – How top performers act and why they never speak up
27:15 – The Force Multipliers program: investing in your all-stars
31:50 – Finding Fred: the co-founder story
38:30 – 2022: the year that almost broke everything
46:00 – The coach conversation that changed how he leads 52:00 – Taking care of your body and mind as a founder 58:10 – Advice to his younger self: give yourself time to learn

Description:

Most companies don’t fail because of bad strategy they fail because of bad hires.

In this solo episode, David Politis breaks down a battle-tested 10-step interview framework built from 20+ years of experience, hundreds of CEO conversations, and real-world hiring mistakes. From uncovering the real motivations behind a candidate’s story to spotting red flags most interviewers miss, this episode is a masterclass in hiring with intention.

David challenges the common belief that “people are your greatest asset” and reframes it: the right people are everything. Because the cost of getting it wrong isn’t just time it can be millions in lost value, broken teams, and missed opportunities.

Takeaways :

• 1. “The right people” > just “people”: Hiring isn’t a volume game. One wrong hire especially at leadership level can cost millions in enterprise value and derail entire teams.
• 2. Most companies are “winging” interviews: Very few leaders are formally trained in hiring. Lack of structure leads to poor candidate experience, wasted leadership time, and bad hires.
• 3. Depth beats polish in interviews: Great candidates can go into the details. If someone can’t get into the weeds metrics, decisions, outcomes that’s a major red flag.
• 4. The power of “why” questions: Asking layered “why” questions helps you move past rehearsed answers and uncover true motivations, decision-making, and character.
• 5. Hiring is about alignment, not just capability: Understanding what energizes a candidate and where they want to go is critical. Even great talent fails when there’s misalignment with the role.
  
  Quote of the Show : "The reality is that we're winging it. And the cost of winging it is very, very high. The cost of hiring the wrong person there could be literally millions, if not tens of millions of dollars of enterprise value lost." - David Politis, Host of Not Another CEO

Chapters

00:00 – Why hiring is the highest-leverage decision you make

06:14 – “The right people” vs. just people

08:30 – The hidden cost of bad hiring decisions

11:00 – Why most companies are winging interviews

13:30 – The importance of preparation and alignment

16:00 – The power of taking decision-grade notes

18:30 – Step 1–3: Setting the tone, story, and “why” questions

21:00 – Going deep: testing real experience and competence

25:00 – Finding what energizes candidates

29:00 – Anti-selling the role + spotting red flags in questions

What happens when the company you built… is no longer yours?

Rob LoCascio, Founder of LivePerson, shares the full, unfiltered reality of building, scaling, losing, and rebuilding as a founder. From starting with almost nothing to taking his company public, scaling it from $900M to $4B in just 12 months during COVID and then facing the brutal reality of losing control of what he built.

In this conversation, Rob opens up about the hardest chapter of his career: fighting to hold onto his company, the emotional toll of watching it decline after his departure, and the moment he realized that everything he created was at risk.

He also dives into what separates founders who come back from those who don’t, why creativity is the one asset no one can ever take from you, and how to rebuild your identity when the company you built is no longer yours.

This isn’t just a story about success or failure it’s about ownership, resilience, and what it really means to be a builder.

If you’re building something or afraid of losing it this episode will hit hard.

Takeaways:

They Can Take the Company, Not the Builder: Rob’s biggest realization came after losing control everything external can be stripped away, but your ability to create, build, and execute is untouchable. That’s the real edge founders have.

Scaling Fast Comes With Hidden Risk: Going from $900M to $4B in 12 months sounds like a dream but hypergrowth brings pressure, expectations, and fragility that most people don’t see until it’s too late.

Founder Identity Is the Real Battle: Losing a company isn’t just financial it’s deeply personal. Rob breaks down what it feels like to lose something you poured your life into, and how to rebuild from that.

Fighting for What You Built Isn’t Optional: When things started slipping, Rob didn’t walk away he fought. And he explains why that fight was the hardest thing he’s ever faced as a leader.

Your Gift Is the Only Constant: Markets change, companies rise and fall but your creativity, vision, and ability to build are the only things that stay with you for life.

Quote of the Show:
"They can take your company. They can take your money. But they can’t take your creativity, the ability to build again." - Rob LoCascio

Links:
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rlocascio/
- LivePerson: https://www.liveperson.com
- KID Company: https://www.kidco.ai/
- Uare.ai: https://www.uare.ai/

Chapters:
00:00 – Intro
01:19 – From nothing: $5K, a couch, and starting over
02:10 – Building LivePerson and going public
05:30 – The COVID surge: $900M to $4B in 12 months
09:45 – When things started to break
14:20 – Losing control of the company he built
18:05 – The hardest fight of his career
22:40 – Watching the company decline after leaving
27:15 – The emotional toll of losing everything
31:50 – Identity beyond the company
36:10 – Why founders can always build again
41:25 – Creativity as the ultimate unfair advantage
46:00 – What Rob is building next
50:30 – The real meaning of success and failure