In this episode of the Say It SkillfullyĀ® podcast, Molly sits down with Noel Moldvaiā€”entrepreneur, CEO, and co-founder of Augmentā€”for an inspiring conversation about resilience, emotional intelligence, and what it truly means to lead.
Noel shares his journey from leaving Yugoslavia as a young boy to navigating life as a first-generation immigrant in Canada and California, learning English as his third language, and finding his path from Berkeley to Google to Rubrik before taking the leap into founding his own company.
He opens up about the hard-won lessons that shaped him as a leader: why EQ matters more than IQ, how he learned to manage his own emotional reactions before trying to lead others, and the near-death moments at Augment that tested everything he had. He also shares the surprisingly personal origin story behind Augment (a platform now being called the Robinhood for private markets) born out of his own frustration trying to access locked-up startup equity just to buy an engagement ring and a home.
Honest, grounded, and deeply human, this episode is a reminder that naivetĆ© can be both a blessing and a curse, and sometimes, it's exactly what it takes to build something the world has never seen.Ā
