Yael and Mike talk with Faraj Aalaei, Founder and CEO of Cognichip about his 40-year journey from product engineer to successful entrepreneur. Just starting on your entrepreneurship journey – Faraj offers some great advice!

Cognichip is revolutionizing semiconductor design through its innovative Artificial Chip Intelligence (ACI®) technology, aiming to make chip development faster, cheaper, and more accessible.

Mike and Yael kick off a new disruptor series with NBA legend Ralph Sampson (UVA '83). Hard working and humble, Ralph shares his lessons for succeeding on and off the court.

Make sure to visit Ralph’s latest venture Milk and Honey for some Southern cuisine when you visit Charlottesville.

Chime, Venmo, Robinhood, Stripe – odds are you are using at least one of these Fintech apps. The reality is these companies won’t put companies like JP Morgan Chase out of business but in some pockets of the world, and with some customer segments, they are chipping away at market share. Some say traditional banking is ripe for disruption especially in the age if AI. What might that look like and is your money safe?

Mike and Yael talk with Ian Appel, UVA Darden Associate Professor and Academic Director of Richard A. Mayo Center for Asset Management, about Fintech and the future of banking.

Ian earned an M.S. and Ph.D. in finance from The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and his recent work studies different types of institutional investors, corporate environmental behaviors, and governance in decentralized finance.

Look for new episodes of Good Disruption on the first Monday of each month!

Mike and Yael catch up with Darden Professor Tim Laseter following his trip to the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. From robots to beauty tech to smart glasses, the show features the latest in cutting edge new tech. What’s new, scalable, or hype?

Our fourth season kicks off with a mini course on disruptive innovation. What is it and what are the markers of a major technological shift? Mike and Yael give a brief Disruption 101 and explore whether disruptions are inherently good or bad, considering both the immediate negative effects and the long-term positive outcomes. They also discuss the role of government, venture capital, and other stakeholders in fostering innovation.

As we end our third season, Yael and Mike reflect on the disruptive technologies explored over the last year. It was an interesting mix of good, bad, and no disruption calls. Do they feel the same now about disruptive potential that they did when each episode first aired? What’s coming in 2026? Don’t miss this recap and send the Good Disruption team your ideas at duffr@darden.virginia.edu.

Large language models (LLMs) offer powerful opportunities for automation, creativity, and knowledge access. With 800 million people using ChatGPT alone, LLMs are drastically changing the way we interact and operate as a society. No question, this is one of the biggest disruptions of our lifetime; but is it a good one?

We’re LIVE from DC Tech Connect, Batten Institute’s flagship tech event that brings students and alumni together to talk about digital tools and career paths. In this episode Yael and Mike explore LLMs with Dr. Ronnie Chatterji, OpenAI’s first Chief Economist. Chatterji is also the Mark Burgess & Lisa Benson-Burgess Distinguished Professor of Business and Public Policy at Duke University and has held previous roles with the Biden and Obama Administrations.

Imagine ordering food from Door Dash and it’s delivered to your doorstep within minutes, not by a driver, but a drone. For residents in Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs, this became reality this past summer. And customer delivery isn’t the only industry being disrupted by drones. From precision agriculture to precision battlefield strikes, the use of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is changing the game.

Mike and Yael talk with Mark Hahn (MBA ’20) a career Naval Aviator and previous operations lead for drone start-up company Zipline about the UAV landscape and the pros and cons of using this technology.