👋 I’m Justin. I run The SF Grind and The LA Grind, host the Ambition Podcast, and scout for Headline. I live in LA but spend a lot of time in San Francisco meeting founders, hosting gatherings, and enjoying the wonderful city.
Happy Thursday! I’m about to head out for a run soon, but wanted to send some updates on the Ambition Summit and Ambition Podcast.
Let’s get to it.
The Ambition Summit, on September 24th, will bring a curated group of 150 founders, operators, and investors together in Santa Monica to learn and connect for a full day, with a VIP dinner the night before.
I’m excited to announce our latest speaker: Shamin Walsh, Managing Director at BAM Ventures.
Shamin Walsh has over 17+ years as an active angel investor who gained experience in the consumer space through her early investments in companies such as Sweetgreen, Flexport, and Sir Kensington’s.
Prior to joining BAM Ventures as a managing director, she was a consumer-focused partner at an early-stage generalist firm with tangible assets in 3PL/fulfillment, cold storage/co-packing, and manufacturing, giving her a holistic perspective through which to evaluate emerging consumer businesses. She managed the investment portfolio and served on several boards. She also leveraged her experience as a transactional attorney to assist in contract negotiations, fund formation, and fund construction.
Shamin received her B.S. in Foreign Service from Georgetown University, and a J.D. from Loyola Law School. Shamin is passionate about education and dedicates her free time to creating access for others. She previously served as an adjunct professor of Entrepreneurial Finance at Loyola Marymount University, as the Head of Engagement and Advocacy on the Teach for America Associates Board, and as a mentor with the Fulfillment Fund.
Shamin joins our other confirmed speakers:
Mehul Nariyawala: Co-Founder, Matic Robots. Mehul previously co-founded Flutter, which Google acquired for $40M, and went on to work on Nest. In January 2026, Matic raised a $60M Series C to scale their home robotics platform, a product that earned a 10/10 from WIRED (the reviewer's first 10/10 in over a decade of reviews) and a 9/10 from The Verge.
Dee Murthy, Co-Founder of Ghost, an AI-native distribution platform for the best brands in the world, that has raised $95M, most recently a $40M Series C.
Jessica Chang, Co-Founder of Upwards, the largest childcare network in the US, and a company that raised $43.3M, most recently a $21M Series B.
Tyler Denk, founder of beehiiv ($50M raised, on pace for $50M ARR in 2026), the platform I use and love, is confirmed for an exclusive Day Zero VIP dinner the night before, on September 23rd.
We’ll announce more speakers soon! Also, if you’re interested in becoming a sponsor, please reply to this email and I’ll share more details.
The Ambition Podcast is a show about the world's most ambitious people from history, and the lessons you can take from their lives and use in your own work and life.
Each episode is deeply researched, built around the definitive biography of one person (or in some cases, two), with dozens of hours spent reading, synthesizing, and pulling out what actually matters: what they built, how they thought, the struggles they overcame, and the tactics, strategies, and principles underneath it all.
Our third episode, featuring the Dietrich Mateschitz, the founder of Red Bull, was released last week. His story is insane and I loved reading about him.
Up next? Steve Jobs. I’m reading the 600-page biography by Walter Isaacson to create the episode, so it’s going to take me a little more time to release, but there are so many gems and I can’t wait to share it with you!
Available now on all podcasting platforms including:
If you enjoy the show, I’d greatly appreciate you sharing it with one other person and leaving a 5-star rating in your favorite podcast app!
See you next week,
Justin