Thomas Percy Kim is a 25-year-old filmmaker who's already won critical acclaim at Sundance, been selected for the Oscars, and raised $1.6 million from retail investors to fund his feature film. But here's what makes him different: he didn't wait for permission. When he wanted to make a stop-motion film in high school, he taught himself. When he wanted a name actor, he cold-emailed agents. When studios wouldn't fund his vision, he went straight to his community.

What emerges is a conversation about the immigrant experience, the difference between chasing badges and doing the work, and what it actually means to be obsessed with something. Thomas grew up as the only Korean-American kid in a predominantly white Massachusetts town, arrived at USC film school with a clear mission to become a director (and then skipped most of his required classes to do exactly that), and has spent the last decade proving a simple thesis: you don't have to wait for the gatekeepers to let you in.

Join us for a wide-ranging conversation about being named after Thomas the Tank Engine, what changed when he first saw a room full of successful Korean-Americans his age, why film school actively discourages you from becoming a director, how to raise money by proving competence in small steps, the difference between wanting badges and doing the work, what makes a film actually move people, and what he hopes someone will feel when they watch a film made about his life.

Warm Intro
A conversation, not an interview. Warm, sometimes weird, conversations with interesting people doing big things.

Warm Intro is a video podcast. We're available on every major podcast app and YouTube.

YouTube: @warmintro
Instagram: @warm.intro

Hosted by Chai Mishra
Chai is the Founder of The Essential, an ethical commerce company funded by the leading lights of Silicon Valley.

Chai served on the board of UNICEF, and has advised cities, universities, national sports teams and Fortune 500 corporations. A Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, Chai’s work has also been covered in publications ranging from the SF Chronicle to Business Insider.

Presented by Wefunder
Wefunder created The Community Round.
— allowing founders to raise funds directly from their communities
— allowing anyone to support their favorite founders and join their success.

Raise on Wefunder

Views here are those of the host and the guest. Wefunder makes the show possible but doesn't control who we have on or what we say.

Isabella Sun gave up a job on Wall street to solve fashion’s fit problem — one hiding in plain sight — nearly half of American women are 5'4" or under, yet almost nothing is made to fit them.

With no fashion background whatsoever, Isabella founded Short Story — a personal styling service for petite women — out of her apartment in 2019. She packed boxes until 3 AM, ran to the post office so often her doorman thought she was losing it, and got into Y Combinator that first summer. Today, Short Story has dressed hundreds of thousands of women.

In this cathartic conversation, we talk about growing up in a family of founders, the many horrors of running an ecommerce company, why the fashion industry ignored petite women for so long, and what it actually means when a piece of clothing fits you for the first time.

Warm Intro
A conversation, not an interview. Warm, sometimes weird, conversations with interesting people doing big things.

Warm Intro is a video podcast. We're available on every major podcast app and YouTube.

YouTube: @warmintro
Instagram: @warm.intro

Hosted by Chai Mishra
Chai is the Founder of The Essential, an ethical commerce company funded by the leading lights of Silicon Valley.

Chai served on the board of UNICEF, and has advised cities, universities, national sports teams and Fortune 500 corporations. A Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, Chai’s work has also been covered in publications ranging from the SF Chronicle to Business Insider.

Presented by Wefunder
Wefunder created The Community Round.
— allowing founders to raise funds directly from their communities
— allowing anyone to support their favorite founders and join their success.

Raise on Wefunder

Views here are those of the host and the guest. Wefunder makes the show possible but doesn't control who we have on or what we say.

Windy Chien is one of San Francisco's greatest living artists. But that's just her most recent life.

In a previous life, Windy owned San Francisco's coolest record store, Aquarius Records. In yet another, she was on the original iTunes team, building the way we all now experience music.

Today, as the undisputed queen of knots, her work proudly hangs everywhere from the MoMa to Google's HQ. Her path here took her through every possible complication in the line.

Join us for a rich conversation about what it feels like to call yourself an artist, Steve Jobs' motorcycle, the zen of art and the best Cambodian Beatles cover bands.

Warm Intro
A conversation, not an interview. Warm, sometimes weird, conversations with interesting people doing big things.

Warm Intro is a video podcast. We're available on every major podcast app and YouTube.

YouTube: @warmintro
Instagram: @warm.intro

Hosted by Chai Mishra
Chai is the Founder of The Essential, an ethical commerce company funded by the leading lights of Silicon Valley.

Chai served on the board of UNICEF, and has advised cities, universities, national sports teams and Fortune 500 corporations. A Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, Chai’s work has also been covered in publications ranging from the SF Chronicle to Business Insider.

Presented by Wefunder
Wefunder created The Community Round.
— allowing founders to raise funds directly from their communities
— allowing anyone to support their favorite founders and join their success.

Raise on Wefunder

Views here are those of the host and the guest. Wefunder makes the show possible but doesn't control who we have on or what we say.

Professor Purushottama Billimoria is a philosopher, historian, and one of the people most responsible for getting the world of philosophy to take Indian and Eastern thought seriously, not as spirituality or religious studies, but as philosophy proper.

He's also my former professor and friend.

Join us for a deeply human conversation about philosophy, the corrupting power of wealth, the Parsi Diaspora, and Bob Dylan.

Warm Intro
A conversation, not an interview. Warm, sometimes weird, conversations with interesting people doing big things.

Warm Intro is a video podcast. We're available on every major podcast app and YouTube.

YouTube: @warmintro
Instagram: @warm.intro

Hosted by Chai Mishra
Chai is the Founder of The Essential, an ethical commerce company funded by the leading lights of Silicon Valley.

Chai served on the board of UNICEF, and has advised cities, universities, national sports teams and Fortune 500 corporations. A Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, Chai’s work has also been covered in publications ranging from the SF Chronicle to Business Insider.

Presented by Wefunder
Wefunder created The Community Round.
— allowing founders to raise funds directly from their communities
— allowing anyone to support their favorite founders and join their success.

Raise on Wefunder

Views here are those of the host and the guest. Wefunder makes the show possible but doesn't control who we have on or what we say.

Connie Chan is running for the most important house seat in the country. Her path here has been unlike anyone else's.

Connie is an immigrant and a daughter of San Francisco's Chinatown. She rose through the ranks of its city government, eventually coming to represent a large portion of it. She's a proud progressive from a very proudly progressive city, now in a race for mainstream power.

Join us for sentimental conversation about how Connie got her name, what went wrong in San Francisco and Chai's question that made Connie pause.

0:07 Chai's Warm Intro to Connie
1:50 Origin of her name
3:29 Moving to the US at 13
4:50 First time in San Francisco
6:30 SF Chinatown
7:15 Connie's childhood hero
8:43 Starting out as a translator
14:19 How Connie won her campaigns
17:30 Connie's view of SF politics
20:02 Connie's district 1
21:20 Daughter of Chinatown
22:50 Immigrant civil rights movement
27:54 Why run for Congress
29:26 What makes a good campaigner
37:02 Debate with Saikat Chakrabarti and Scott Wiener
38:40 SF's problems
44:42 Loss of civic pride in SF
48:10 SF is the future
49:28 Role of SF's Congresswoman
53:44 What to say to 13 yo Connie
54:45 Name after Connie Chan

Warm Intro
A conversation, not an interview. Warm, sometimes weird, conversations with interesting people doing big things.

Warm Intro is a video podcast. We're available on every major podcast app and YouTube.

YouTube: @warmintro
Instagram: @warm.intro

Hosted by Chai Mishra
Chai is the Founder of The Essential, an ethical commerce company funded by the leading lights of Silicon Valley.

Chai served on the board of UNICEF, and has advised cities, universities, national sports teams and Fortune 500 corporations. A Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, Chai’s work has also been covered in publications ranging from the SF Chronicle to Business Insider.

Presented by Wefunder
Wefunder created The Community Round.
— allowing founders to raise funds directly from their communities
— allowing anyone to support their favorite founders and join their success.

Raise on Wefunder

Views here are those of the host and the guest. Wefunder makes the show possible but doesn't control who we have on or what we say.

Noor Siddiqui is building technology that people call "designer babies"—and she's thought more carefully about the ethics than most of her critics. At 16, she decided she wanted to screen embryos for genetic disease. Today, as founder of Orchid, she does exactly that: scanning the full genome of IVF embryos to identify thousands of genetic risks, letting parents make more informed choices about which embryo to transfer. The result has divided the tech world, the medical world, and honestly, everyone in between.

What started as a personal mission—sparked by her mother's diagnosis with retinitis pigmentosa and the realization that genetic screening could prevent catastrophic outcomes like stillbirth and infant death—has become one of biotech's most polarizing frontiers. Orchid has helped hundreds of thousands of families, yet the company faces fierce pushback from people who see technology touching birth as inherently wrong. Siddiqui doesn't dismiss that discomfort; she engages with it, and she's surprisingly sympathetic to the concerns that matter most.

Join us for a searching conversation about what it means to grow up loved unconditionally, how a pole-vaulting face-plant teaches you to fail productively, why she's spent nearly two decades thinking about embryo screening, which criticisms of her field actually cut deep, the stranger at a party who told her she saved his life, and what legacy really means when you're hoping to someday just be a grandmother.

0:00 Chai's warm intro to Noor
1:40 Parents’ unconditional love
7:35 Chai’s thoughts on parenting
8:16 Noor’s childhood
12:29 Orchid was always the goal
18:46 What’s Orchid and why?
25:30 Early Users and Haters
30:52 Criticism that Noor understands
34:35 Orchid’s accidental life changing story

Warm Intro
A conversation, not an interview. Warm, sometimes weird, conversations with interesting people doing big things.

Warm Intro is a video podcast. We're available on every major podcast app and YouTube.

YouTube: @warmintro
Instagram: @warm.intro

Hosted by Chai Mishra
Chai is the Founder of The Essential, an ethical commerce company funded by the leading lights of Silicon Valley.

Chai served on the board of UNICEF, and has advised cities, universities, national sports teams and Fortune 500 corporations. A Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, Chai’s work has also been covered in publications ranging from the SF Chronicle to Business Insider.

Presented by Wefunder
Wefunder created The Community Round.
— allowing founders to raise funds directly from their communities
— allowing anyone to support their favorite founders and join their success.

Raise on Wefunder

Views here are those of the host and the guest. Wefunder makes the show possible but doesn't control who we have on or what we say.

Jack Kuveke is a spitting image of the disgraced CEO Adam Neumann. At 20, he ran a 50 million dollar crypto fund in Belgrade, Serbia. His meme factory is called Jabroni Capital. All of this and almost everything else about Jack is objectively hilarious.

Jack is an absurd man who has had an absurd career in an absurd industry. This has given him the ability to ridicule tech and finance better than anyone else. He sincerely roasts CEOs, he ironically broetry praising Elizabeth Holmes and his fake VC firm can’t invest in you “because you’re too early”. He does all of this on the most unintentionally funny platform, Linkedin.

Join us for a ridiculous conversation about how Jack made a career posting memes, why Peter Thiel is so worried about the anti-christ, and why VCs and CEOs (including Chai) love getting roasted by Jack.

Warm Intro
A conversation, not an interview. Warm, sometimes weird, conversations with interesting people doing big things.

Warm Intro is a video podcast. We're available on every major podcast app and YouTube.

YouTube: @warmintro
Instagram: @warm.intro

Hosted by Chai Mishra
Chai is the Founder of The Essential, an ethical commerce company funded by the leading lights of Silicon Valley.

Chai served on the board of UNICEF, and has advised cities, universities, national sports teams and Fortune 500 corporations. A Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, Chai’s work has also been covered in publications ranging from the SF Chronicle to Business Insider.

Presented by Wefunder
Wefunder created The Community Round.
— allowing founders to raise funds directly from their communities
— allowing anyone to support their favorite founders and join their success.

Raise on Wefunder

Views here are those of the host and the guest. Wefunder makes the show possible but doesn't control who we have on or what we say.

Sidra Qasim created the internet’s favorite sneaker. In getting there, she has lived a life that no one could have predicted.

Born and raised in rural Pakistan, Sidra clawed her way out of a system that afforded her no opportunities. Through sheer will, she made it to America and started a company that no one believed she could run.

But now, at 39, Sidra is the founder CEO of Atoms — notoriously the world’s most comfortable sneaker brand, with over 1,000,000 pairs sold, worn by celebrities from Malala to Marques Brownlee, funded by Silicon Valley’s greatest minds.

Join us for a deeply sentimental conversation about what true courage looks like, how things go viral, and how just about every founder deals with depression at one point.

Warm Intro
A conversation, not an interview. Warm, sometimes weird, conversations with interesting people doing big things.

Warm Intro is a video podcast. We're available on every major podcast app and YouTube.

YouTube: @warmintro
Instagram: @warm.intro

Hosted by Chai Mishra
Chai is the Founder of The Essential, an ethical commerce company funded by the leading lights of Silicon Valley.

Chai served on the board of UNICEF, and has advised cities, universities, national sports teams and Fortune 500 corporations. A Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, Chai’s work has also been covered in publications ranging from the SF Chronicle to Business Insider.

Presented by Wefunder
Wefunder created The Community Round.
— allowing founders to raise funds directly from their communities
— allowing anyone to support their favorite founders and join their success.

Raise on Wefunder

Views here are those of the host and the guest. Wefunder makes the show possible but doesn't control who we have on or what we say.