
“the good work talk show” with mallory contois
- Episodes
- 10
- Released
- daily
- Latest episode
- Oct 29, 2026
About the podcast
"the good work talk show" is a deeply honest exploration of work and how it can be a tool for discovering and becoming your best self.
Hosted by mallory contois, each episode is a conversation with someone whose career you may have admired from afar, without knowing the full picture. mallory and her guests get into the real decisions, detours, and tradeoffs they made along the way.
Season 01 is presented by Granola.
Get every episode in your inbox with mallory's notes and takeaways: http://www.watchgoodwork.com
Episodes 10
the good work talk show | ep. 10 - ruffin mitchener
Ruffin was the quiet kid who'd rather take a B than raise her hand, then became an accountant everyone assumed would stay one. Now she reaches more than 200,000 women online and helps them invest in female …
Show notes
Ruffin was the quiet kid who'd rather take a B than raise her hand, then became an accountant everyone assumed would stay one. Now she reaches more than 200,000 women online and helps them invest in female founders.
Why I wanted Ruffin on the show:
Ruffin has built something I really admire: a business that makes investing and company-building feel accessible to women who were never invited into those rooms. I wanted to hear about the long, winding path behind it, from accounting to venture to content, and what it actually took to finally go all in.
About Ruffin:
She's the founder of Brydge Club, a media, community, and investing platform that reaches more than 200,000 women on TikTok and Instagram. Through Brydge Club, she runs a community of women angel investors and helps female founders raise from them.
She grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina, studied accounting at Wake Forest, and started her career as an auditor at Deloitte. From there she joined the real estate investing startup PeerStreet, earned her MBA at UCLA, and worked in venture and at a family office before going all in on Brydge Club.
In this episode, you'll hear:
• growing up with two entrepreneur parents, and why seeing her mom build a 100-agent brokerage shaped everything she makes today
• how acing one intro class pigeonholed her as an accountant, and why she's now grateful she didn't love that path
• why she calls business school a privilege, not a requirement, and what she'd tell anyone deciding whether to work at a startup before founding one
• posting 3 to 5 TikToks a day for her first 30 days, and the VC who laughed her out of an interview for asking if TikTok counted as a sourcing strategy
• six years of experimenting and part-time roles before she went all in, and why it still feels like it could all go away some days
• how she decides what to say yes to now, and why explaining what Brydge Club actually is gives her family-gathering anxiety
• staying motivated on a problem that's moving backwards, and why her How She Built This series might be her biggest impact
Follow Ruffin on TikTok here: @ruffinmitchener
Learn more about Brydge Club here: https://brydgeclub.com/
Read the Granola notes from this episode and chat with them here.✦✦✦
About the good work talk show
"the good work talk show" is a deeply honest exploration of work and how it can be a tool for discovering and becoming your best self. hosted by mallory contois, each episode is a conversation with someone whose career you may have admired from afar, without knowing the full picture.
Get every episode in your inbox with mallory's notes and takeaways: watchgoodwork.com
Find audio-only versions of every episode wherever you listen to podcasts.
Subscribe to "good work" on Substack: readgoodwork.com
Follow the good work talk show on instagram: @watchgoodwork
Follow mallory on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mallorycontois
Season 01 is presented by Granola. Get 3 months free at Granola.ai/goodworkProduced by Joseph M. Olender
Directed by Adam Chavez
Edited by Aaron Bratcher
Graphics by Saltwater Agency
Theme music: "The Other Side" by The Deep West. used with permission. © ℗ 2021 The Deep West. Listen on Spotify.the good work talk show | ep. 09 - caitlin crosby
Caitlin turned a hotel room key she wore as a necklace into The Giving Keys, a pay-it-forward movement that has sold more than three million keys and employed over 150 people transitioning out of …
Show notes
Caitlin turned a hotel room key she wore as a necklace into The Giving Keys, a pay-it-forward movement that has sold more than three million keys and employed over 150 people transitioning out of homelessness.
Why I wanted Caitlin on the show:
Ever since I met Caitlin, I've loved everything about her. She's one of the few people I know who has built a business entirely around caring for other people, and I wanted to hear what it actually took to get from an idea she had while still working as a singer to the social enterprise she runs today, including the parts that nearly broke her.
About Caitlin:
She's the founder of The Giving Keys, a Los Angeles native, and a former singer and actor who always saw entertainment as a way to help people more than a stage to stand on. Before The Giving Keys, she co-founded Love Your Flaws with Brie Larson, a body-image movement built on thousands of handwritten signs from fans.
She started The Giving Keys in 2008, selling engraved keys at her merch table, and grew it for more than a decade without raising a dollar of outside investment. It recently became a nonprofit, and she now also consults with female founders.
In this episode, you'll hear:
• growing up going to the LA Mission with her mom, and why she liked hanging out in the actors' trailers more than acting
• the airbrushed movie poster that led her and Brie Larson to start Love Your Flaws, years before body positivity was a marketing strategy
• how a Studio City locksmith and $8 per key turned into a website she drew with a Sharpie at Kinko's, and necklaces that outsold her CDs
• the dinner on Hollywood Boulevard where she asked a couple experiencing homelessness to become her business partners, and the cash-for-paper-bag handoffs that looked a lot like drug deals
• what COVID, debt, and embezzlement did to the company, and how she worked her way back out with zero investors
• why founders still need to show their face, and why she believes AI can't replicate the moment you hand a stranger a key
• the trade-off she's chosen between work and time with her kids, and her goal of every business in LA employing at least one person transitioning out of homelessness
Learn more about The Giving Keys here: http://www.thegivingkeys.com
Read the Granola notes from this episode and chat with them here.✦✦✦
About the good work talk show
"the good work talk show" is a deeply honest exploration of work and how it can be a tool for discovering and becoming your best self. hosted by mallory contois, each episode is a conversation with someone whose career you may have admired from afar, without knowing the full picture.
Get every episode in your inbox with mallory's notes and takeaways: watchgoodwork.com
Find audio-only versions of every episode wherever you listen to podcasts.
Subscribe to "good work" on Substack: readgoodwork.com
Follow the good work talk show on instagram: @watchgoodwork
Follow mallory on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mallorycontois
Season 01 is presented by Granola. Get 3 months free at Granola.ai/goodworkProduced by Joseph M. Olender
Directed by Adam Chavez
Edited by Aaron Bratcher
Graphics by Saltwater Agency
Theme music: "The Other Side" by The Deep West. used with permission. © ℗ 2021 The Deep West. Listen on Spotify.the good work talk show | ep. 07 - emily kramer
Emily built marketing from scratch at four startups, including Asana and Carta. Then she started a newsletter she thought of as lead gen, and it quietly became a business.Why I wanted Emily on the show:Emily is …
Show notes
Emily built marketing from scratch at four startups, including Asana and Carta. Then she started a newsletter she thought of as lead gen, and it quietly became a business.
Why I wanted Emily on the show:
Emily is one of the most respected marketing leaders in tech, and someone I've been lucky to get to know over the past few years. I wanted to hear what it was really like to move away from operating and into writing, advising, and creating, what it takes to build a newsletter business, and how her comfort with change has shaped the bets she's made on herself.
About Emily:
She's a marketing leader who built early marketing teams at Asana, Astro, and Carta, and the co-founder of MKT1, a newsletter on B2B startup marketing with more than 80,000 readers.
Today she runs a true portfolio career: she writes MKT1, advises growth-stage marketing leaders, teaches courses, and invests in startups, including through a fund that backed 35 companies.
In this episode, you'll hear:
• what her portfolio career actually looks like, from paid subscribers and sponsors to advising and investing, and why she built it to smooth out "lumpy" income
• five elementary schools, two high schools, two colleges, and how all that moving made her someone who loves change
• how she landed her head of marketing job at Asana through one of her former summer camp campers
• why you don't have to stay four years to vest your options, and why what looks risky to other people doesn't feel risky to her
• how MKT1 started as an FAQ for founders, not a business plan, and why each newsletter still takes her around 40 hours
• her advice for anyone starting a newsletter or advising practice: go narrower
• the marketing advice she used to give that she's since changed: you have to love the founders
Read MKT1 at: http://www.mkt1.co
Read the Granola notes from this episode and chat with them here.✦✦✦
About the good work talk show
"the good work talk show" is a deeply honest exploration of work and how it can be a tool for discovering and becoming your best self. hosted by mallory contois, each episode is a conversation with someone whose career you may have admired from afar, without knowing the full picture.
Get every episode in your inbox with mallory's notes and takeaways: watchgoodwork.com
Find audio-only versions of every episode wherever you listen to podcasts.
Subscribe to "good work" on Substack: readgoodwork.com
Follow the good work talk show on instagram: @watchgoodwork
Follow mallory on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mallorycontois
Season 01 is presented by Granola. Get 3 months free at Granola.ai/goodworkProduced by Joseph M. Olender
Directed by Adam Chavez
Edited by Aaron Bratcher
Graphics by Saltwater Agency
Theme music: "The Other Side" by The Deep West. used with permission. © ℗ 2021 The Deep West. Listen on Spotify.the good work talk show | ep. 08 - tyler palmer
Tyler knew at 16 that he wanted to help artists make a living. It took four swings to find the one that worked, and then he spent 10 years helping build Patreon.Why I wanted Tyler on the show:Tyler is a dear …
Show notes
Tyler knew at 16 that he wanted to help artists make a living. It took four swings to find the one that worked, and then he spent 10 years helping build Patreon.
Why I wanted Tyler on the show:
Tyler is a dear friend and one of the best operators I know. He built a career around a single problem he cared about as a teenager, and he's a living example of how far the extra 5% can take you. I wanted to hear how he ended up at Patreon, why he stayed for a full decade, and what it's like to start a new chapter after being "the guy" somewhere for so long.
About Tyler:
He's an operator and investor who spent 10 years at Patreon, from the very beginning through leading its entire operations team, helping send billions of dollars to artists and creators. Before Patreon, he studied music and business at USC and helped build StageIt, an early live-streaming concert platform.
Today he invests in founders and artists who are building things that make the world a little better, and spends his time helping them make their dreams come true.
In this episode, you'll hear:
• growing up between his dad's sales calls and his mom's handwritten thank you notes, and how hockey and musical theater taught him not to put himself in a box
• the conversation with his touring guitarist cousin that pointed Tyler's career at one problem when he was 16
• the 8:30pm class he almost skipped, and the line he waited in afterward, that led to his first job in tech
• what StageIt taught him: work can be fun, and people will give to artists if you make it easy enough
• why he bought a one-way ticket to San Francisco to join Patreon, and why "kind killers" kept him there for 10 years
• why he'd tell a friend to take the $40K job over the $150K one if the people are more excellent, and the elevator test for choosing where to work
• "ambition doesn't just move up and down, it moves left and right," and the thing he's surprised to miss most since leaving: structure
• his three-part definition of good workFollow @tylerpalmer on X here.
Read the Granola notes from this episode and chat with them here.✦✦✦
About the good work talk show
"the good work talk show" is a deeply honest exploration of work and how it can be a tool for discovering and becoming your best self. hosted by mallory contois, each episode is a conversation with someone whose career you may have admired from afar, without knowing the full picture.
Get every episode in your inbox with mallory's notes and takeaways: watchgoodwork.com
Find audio-only versions of every episode wherever you listen to podcasts.
Subscribe to "good work" on Substack: readgoodwork.com
Follow the good work talk show on instagram: @watchgoodwork
Follow mallory on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mallorycontois
Season 01 is presented by Granola. Get 3 months free at Granola.ai/goodworkProduced by Joseph M. Olender
Directed by Adam Chavez
Edited by Aaron Bratcher
Graphics by Saltwater Agency
Theme music: "The Other Side" by The Deep West. used with permission. © ℗ 2021 The Deep West. Listen on Spotify.the good work talk show | ep. 06 - grace mccarrick
Grace made $18K her first year in business. Today she teaches soft skills to teams at companies like Spotify, Amazon, and DoorDash, and it all started with a candle.Why I wanted Grace on the show:Grace is a …
Show notes
Grace made $18K her first year in business. Today she teaches soft skills to teams at companies like Spotify, Amazon, and DoorDash, and it all started with a candle.
Why I wanted Grace on the show:
Grace is a friend, and one of the most honest voices on work online. She's known for her spicy takes, especially for Gen Z navigating their careers, and I wanted to hear what it's really like to be that direct on the internet, how her business actually works, and what it took to go from feeling stuck in her career to building something of her own.
About Grace:
She's a creator and speaker with 200K+ followers across platforms who teaches soft skills and career navigation. She leads keynotes and custom workshops for teams at brands like Spotify, Amazon, Marriott, DoorDash, and Live Nation, and runs The Soft Skill School, her private paid community.
Before starting her own company in 2021, she spent nearly a decade working across claims, beauty PR, operations, and insurtech startups.
In this episode, you'll hear:
- what a real week looks like inside her business, from sales calls to custom proposals to 12 videos on a good hair day
- growing up with "white collar world, blue collar values," and her parents' deal: we'll pay for college, you'll give a year of service
- a year running an emergency food pantry for $200 a month, and why it sent her into corporate
- the 2020 pay cut that made her feel two inches tall, and the career coach who refused to tell her what to do
- the real origin story: getting fired, a custom candle from a magic shop, and her dad's idea
- free workshops, a very stiff first LinkedIn video, bartending, and paid tarot readings on the way to building a business
- why betting on yourself doesn't have to mean starting a company, and her one rule for growing an audience: stop talking about yourself
Learn more about Grace here: http://www.gracemccarrick.com
Follow Grace on Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/grace_mccarrick/
Read the Granola notes from this episode and chat with them here: https://notes.granola.ai/t/63611a47-76c9-43fe-aca8-5b7912c27365-009c2hma✦✦✦
About the good work talk show
"the good work talk show" is a deeply honest exploration of work and how it can be a tool for discovering and becoming your best self. hosted by mallory contois, each episode is a conversation with someone whose career you may have admired from afar, without knowing the full picture.
Get every episode in your inbox with mallory's notes and takeaways: watchgoodwork.com
Find audio-only versions of every episode wherever you listen to podcasts.
Subscribe to "good work" on Substack: readgoodwork.com
Follow the good work talk show on instagram: @watchgoodwork
Follow mallory on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mallorycontois
Season 01 is presented by Granola. Get 3 months free at Granola.ai/goodworkProduced by Joseph M. Olender
Directed by Adam Chavez
Edited by Aaron Bratcher
Graphics by Saltwater Agency
Theme music: "The Other Side" by The Deep West. used with permission. © ℗ 2021 The Deep West. Listen on Spotify.the good work talk show | ep. 05 - max schneider (aka @max4cracks)
Max taught himself motion design on YouTube, turned it into a career, and then built an audience of 258,000 on TikTok mostly by making things he thinks are funny.Why I wanted Max on the show:Max is proof that …
Show notes
Max taught himself motion design on YouTube, turned it into a career, and then built an audience of 258,000 on TikTok mostly by making things he thinks are funny.
Why I wanted Max on the show:
Max is proof that there's real craft behind the funniest content on the internet. He went from graphic designer to motion designer to creator, and I wanted to understand what it actually feels like to put your life online, how he decides what's funny enough to post, and what the rest of us can learn from how he's built his own brand.
About Max:
He's a designer, videographer, and creator known on the internet as max4cracks, with 258K followers and 45 million likes on TikTok. After earning a BFA in graphic design, he worked in motion design at agencies before making content for Donut Media, one of the biggest car channels on YouTube.
Today he makes satirical content about the characters of Silver Lake (and the Silver Lake in all of us), and partners with brands who trust him to make ads that don't feel like ads.
In this episode, you'll hear:
- the bucket of toy cars, flipping cars on Craigslist in high school, and the real estate "exit strategy" that turned into a degree in graphic design
- why he disagrees that if something comes easily, it isn't worth doing
- how he taught himself After Effects on YouTube to make himself less disposable at his first job, then pitched a role his next agency didn't know it needed
- the Facebook Reels contract that taught him short-form video on someone else's dime
- why "is it funny?" has guided a lot of his life decisions, and why he thinks authenticity is decided by the viewer
- his notes-app system for ideas (about 80% don't survive), plus a restaurant concept called Boy Meal
- why brand deals pay far more than platforms do, and why he walked away from a big deal that wanted an ad
- and yes, the episode ends in the pool
Follow Max on TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@max4cracks
Follow Max on Instagram here: http://www.instagram.com/max4cracks
Read the Granola notes from this episode and chat with them here: https://notes.granola.ai/t/e50a0501-9155-406d-8507-2aa575f9f7dd-009c2hma✦✦✦
About the good work talk show
"the good work talk show" is a deeply honest exploration of work and how it can be a tool for discovering and becoming your best self. hosted by mallory contois, each episode is a conversation with someone whose career you may have admired from afar, without knowing the full picture.
Get every episode in your inbox with mallory's notes and takeaways: watchgoodwork.com
Find audio-only versions of every episode wherever you listen to podcasts.
Subscribe to "good work" on Substack: readgoodwork.com
Follow the good work talk show on instagram: @watchgoodwork
Follow mallory on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mallorycontois
Season 01 is presented by Granola. Get 3 months free at Granola.ai/goodworkProduced by Joseph M. Olender
Directed by Adam Chavez
Edited by Aaron Bratcher
Graphics by Saltwater Agency
Theme music: "The Other Side" by The Deep West. used with permission. © ℗ 2021 The Deep West. Listen on Spotify.the good work talk show | ep. 03 - marcus buckingham
Marcus has spent decades studying what makes people exceptional at work, and his answer starts somewhere most of us never look: what we love.Why I wanted Marcus on the show:Marcus has helped change how millions …
Show notes
Marcus has spent decades studying what makes people exceptional at work, and his answer starts somewhere most of us never look: what we love.
Why I wanted Marcus on the show:
Marcus has helped change how millions of people understand what they're good at and what they should do about it. I wanted him on the show to explore a question at the heart of this show: how do you build a career around the things that make you feel most like yourself? His perspective will make you reconsider what you call a strength, what you expect from a manager, and how much of your working life you spend trying to fix yourself.
About Marcus:
He's a researcher, author, and entrepreneur who has spent his career studying people at their best. A co-creator of StrengthsFinder and a New York Times bestselling author whose books have sold more than five million copies, he spent 17 years at Gallup before building his own company.
He's now the founder of LoveThat, where he's focused on helping people get better at designing experiences that others love, and his new book, Design Love In, is available now wherever books are sold.
In this episode, you'll hear:
- the conversation at his family's dining table at 16 that set the course of his life, and why he sees a career as a scavenger hunt for love, not a climb
- how Gallup figured out what the best nurses, salespeople, and managers have in common, including the one interview answer every great nurse gives
- the story behind StrengthsFinder, and why a strength is an activity that strengthens you, not just something you're good at
- "red threads," and why you only need about 20% of your work to be things you love
- why most HR tools work against good work, and what Lionel Messi's left foot teaches us about building great teams
- a simple exercise for finding your own strengths: spend a week in love with your job
- the one ingredient every business needs, and his research-backed definition of good work
Learn more about LoveThat here: http://www.lovethat.com
Learn more about Marcus' work at: http://www.buckinghaminstitute.com
Read the Granola notes from this episode and chat with them here.✦✦✦
About the good work talk show
"the good work talk show" is a deeply honest exploration of work and how it can be a tool for discovering and becoming your best self. hosted by mallory contois, each episode is a conversation with someone whose career you may have admired from afar, without knowing the full picture.
Get every episode in your inbox with mallory's notes and takeaways: watchgoodwork.com
Find audio-only versions of every episode wherever you listen to podcasts.
Subscribe to "good work" on Substack: readgoodwork.com
Follow the good work talk show on instagram: @watchgoodwork
Follow mallory on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mallorycontois
Season 01 is presented by Granola. Get 3 months free at Granola.ai/goodworkProduced by Joseph M. Olender
Directed by Adam Chavez
Edited by Aaron Bratcher
Graphics by Saltwater Agency
Theme music: "The Other Side" by The Deep West. used with permission. © ℗ 2021 The Deep West. Listen on Spotify.the good work talk show | ep. 04 - toni cowan-brown
Toni spent two decades in tech and politics, then turned a 74-page Formula 1 guide for a friend into an entirely new career.Why I wanted Toni on the show:Toni is what happens when two decades in tech and …
Show notes
Toni spent two decades in tech and politics, then turned a 74-page Formula 1 guide for a friend into an entirely new career.
Why I wanted Toni on the show:
Toni is what happens when two decades in tech and politics collide with a lifelong Formula 1 obsession. I brought her on Good Work because she's proof that the most interesting careers don't fit in one box, and because few people understand how to build a fandom from scratch better than she does.
About Toni:
She's an F1 commentator and creator with 100K+ followers on TikTok, a recurring ESPN guest, and co-host of The Red Bulletin's F1 podcast. Before F1, she worked on presidential campaigns across Europe and led the European expansion of an American tech company as a VP.
She's also the founder of Sunday Fangirls, a platform built to have the hard conversations about who gets to belong in motorsport. While the sport was still figuring out what to do with its flood of new fans, Toni was already building a home for them.
In this episode, you'll hear:
- 12 years of circus school (yes, trapeze and tightrope), and how a childhood of hard years made everything since feel a little easier
- the question that reshaped her career during a break from corporate: without your title, why would anyone be lucky to sit next to you at dinner?
- how a 74-page F1 explainer became a newsletter, then TikTok, and the two accidental rage-bait videos that took her from 12 followers to thousands overnight
- why the ROI on trying to fit in is terrible, and why she'll always ask the questions people think are too basic (like where F1 drivers keep their car keys)
- "I monetize my brain, not my lifestyle," and her three-bucket test for which brand deals she says yes to
- why female fans are the relevancy every brand and series is chasing, and how she built Sunday Fangirls with help from her community
Follow Toni on TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@tonicowanbrown
Learn more about Sunday Fangirls here: https://sundayfangirls.store
Read the Granola notes from this episode and chat with them here.✦✦✦
About the good work talk show
"the good work talk show" is a deeply honest exploration of work and how it can be a tool for discovering and becoming your best self. hosted by mallory contois, each episode is a conversation with someone whose career you may have admired from afar, without knowing the full picture.
Get every episode in your inbox with mallory's notes and takeaways: watchgoodwork.com
Find audio-only versions of every episode wherever you listen to podcasts.
Subscribe to "good work" on Substack: readgoodwork.com
Follow the good work talk show on instagram: @watchgoodwork
Follow mallory on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mallorycontois
Season 01 is presented by Granola. Get 3 months free at Granola.ai/goodworkProduced by Joseph M. Olender
Directed by Adam Chavez
Edited by Aaron Bratcher
Graphics by Saltwater Agency
Theme music: "The Other Side" by The Deep West. used with permission. © ℗ 2021 The Deep West. Listen on Spotify.the good work talk show | ep. 01 - jean luo
Jean spent 15 years building the kind of career most people would never walk away from, then walked away from it anyway.Why I wanted Jean on the show:as much as I love her sister Cherie, I wanted to get Jean on …
Show notes
Jean spent 15 years building the kind of career most people would never walk away from, then walked away from it anyway.
Why I wanted Jean on the show:
as much as I love her sister Cherie, I wanted to get Jean on her own. she's one of the clearest examples I know of someone who made a big, scary bet on herself, and I wanted to hear what that pivot actually looked and felt like from the inside. I was curious what she had to unlearn, how she defines wealth now, and how she thinks about work in a world that's changing this fast.
About Jean:
she’s a tech executive turned entrepreneur, investor, and co-host of the Tiger Sisters podcast with her sister, Cherie. a Harvard Business School graduate and former Goldman Sachs investor, she helped build Snapchat's augmented reality shopping and advertising products and holds more than 50 AI patents.
after 15 years in tech and finance, she left her corporate career to bet on herself as a creator. Tiger Sisters has since surpassed 1 million listens and ranks among the top business podcasts in the US.
In this episode, you'll hear:
- how Jean got hired at Goldman without knowing how to use Excel, and why being the non-obvious candidate became her edge
- what it cost her to fully dive in at every company, and the link between how work was going and how she was doing
- the sabbatical that gave her the confidence to leave, including an unpaid fashion internship and a short-lived beading career
- why Tiger Sisters started as a reality TV pitch and why they bought one camera and started at the kitchen table instead
- the decision to take zero brand deals in year one, and the (very unserious) thumbnail experiment that flopped
- her take on what you need before you leave to build your own thing
Listen to Tiger Sisters on Spotify.Read the Granola notes from this episode and chat with them here.
✦✦✦
About the good work talk show
"the good work talk show" is a deeply honest exploration of work and how it can be a tool for discovering and becoming your best self. hosted by mallory contois, each episode is a conversation with someone whose career you may have admired from afar, without knowing the full picture.
Get every episode in your inbox with mallory's notes and takeaways: watchgoodwork.com
Find audio-only versions of every episode wherever you listen to podcasts.
Subscribe to "good work" on Substack: readgoodwork.com
Follow the good work talk show on instagram: @watchgoodwork
Follow mallory on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mallorycontois
Season 01 is presented by Granola. Get 3 months free at Granola.ai/goodworkProduced by Joseph M. Olender
Directed by Adam Chavez
Edited by Aaron Bratcher
Graphics by Saltwater Agency
Theme music: "The Other Side" by The Deep West. used with permission. © ℗ 2021 The Deep West. Listen on Spotify.the good work talk show | ep. 02 - molly graham
Molly has never had a plan, and that's exactly how she ended up helping build Google, Facebook, and Quip.Why I wanted Molly on the show:Molly's "Give Away Your Legos" essay is one of the most …
Show notes
Molly has never had a plan, and that's exactly how she ended up helping build Google, Facebook, and Quip.
Why I wanted Molly on the show:
Molly's "Give Away Your Legos" essay is one of the most referenced pieces of writing on what it feels like to grow with a company, and Glue Club is a home for all the gluey people keeping everything together at work. I wanted to hear the story behind the frameworks, how someone who followed curiosity instead of a plan kept getting tapped for bigger and bigger jobs, and how she knew when the job she'd be great at was no longer what she was supposed to be doing.
About Molly:
Molly Graham is a company builder, leadership expert, and founder of Glue Club whose career spans Google, Facebook, Quip, and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative. She helped shape Facebook's early culture and mobile strategy and later served as COO of Quip, which Salesforce acquired for $750 million.
Known for her influential "Give Away Your Legos" essay, Molly has since turned her experience scaling companies into a mission to help people build more meaningful careers through Glue Club, her Lessons newsletter, and her role as host of TED's WorkLife podcast, succeeding Adam Grant.
In this episode, you'll hear:
- how being the 4th of 4 siblings made her the stage manager in her family and in her career
- 75 days in Alaska, a think tank job she got partly because she knew CPR, and the question that got her to Google
- the real story behind her decision to follow Sheryl Sandberg to Facebook
- why people kept handing her opportunities, and the question she thinks everyone should ask: what do you want people to think of you for?
- the COO job she'd have been great at and miserable in, and why what matters is the days
- why she thinks the Legos framework matters more than ever in the age of AI, and why the answer is curiosity and play, not fear
read "Give Away Your Legos": https://review.firstround.com/give-away-your-legos-and-other-commandments-for-scaling-startups/
Learn more about Glue Club: https://www.glueclub.comRead the Granola notes from this episode and chat with them here.
✦✦✦
About the good work talk show
"the good work talk show" is a deeply honest exploration of work and how it can be a tool for discovering and becoming your best self. hosted by mallory contois, each episode is a conversation with someone whose career you may have admired from afar, without knowing the full picture.
Get every episode in your inbox with mallory's notes and takeaways: watchgoodwork.com
Find audio-only versions of every episode wherever you listen to podcasts.
Subscribe to "good work" on Substack: readgoodwork.com
Follow the good work talk show on instagram: @watchgoodwork
Follow mallory on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mallorycontois
Season 01 is presented by Granola. Get 3 months free at Granola.ai/goodworkProduced by Joseph M. Olender
Directed by Adam Chavez
Edited by Aaron Bratcher
Graphics by Saltwater Agency
Theme music: "The Other Side" by The Deep West. used with permission. © ℗ 2021 The Deep West. Listen on Spotify.
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