Bobby Umar has done TEDx five times. In this episode, he breaks down how to actually get accepted, what makes a talk land, and the leverage move almost nobody makes after the applause dies down — plus the night he walked off the TEDx stage mid-talk and why he did it on purpose.

SHOW NOTES:

He walked off the TEDx stage mid-talk — slides broken, screen blank, audience watching. Then he went back out and delivered the talk that became one of his best.

Bobby Umar has stood on the TEDx stage five times, coached founders and executives on how to turn their story into stage-ready authority, and built a 25-year speaking career out of four careers that didn't fit. In this episode, he walks through what actually gets a TEDx application accepted, why most pitches get rejected, how to mine your own life story for the idea worth pitching, and the three-part framework almost no one completes: land it, deliver it, leverage it.

You'll hear:

• What separates a TEDx idea that gets accepted from one that gets ignored
• How to turn your life story into a pitch-ready TEDx concept
• Why the application itself is where most people lose the opportunity
• The full story of the night Bobby walked off a TEDx stage — and why
• How to build buzz around a talk before it's even live
• Where founders should be putting their energy beyond TEDx in 2026

Bobby Umar is a 5x TEDx speaker, Inc. Magazine Top 100 Leadership Speaker, and two-time LinkedIn Top Voice with 1,000+ keynotes across four continents.

Connect with Bobby Umar:
Website: https://raeallan.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobbyumar/
Substack: https://substack.com/@bobbyumar

From tech lawyer to Warner, Meta, and CEO of Merlin — now Chief Commercial Officer at Suno. Jeremy Sirota on never being the smartest person in the room, the book he'd never talked about, and why AI can't help you if you've got nothing to say.

FULL DESCRIPTION

"I've never been the smartest person in the room. So I've always had to pull at something else."

Jeremy Sirota has a career that refuses to sit on a straight line. Tech lawyer at Morrison & Foerster. Record exec at Warner Music. Global licensing deals at Meta. CEO of Merlin, where he took annual revenue from $900M to $1.8B. Now Chief Commercial Officer at Suno, one of the most-watched generative AI music companies on the planet.

But he didn't talk his way in — he worked his way in. The through-line was never the title. It was a way of operating: build the room where genius happens instead of trying to be the genius in it. It took his ten-year-old daughter cutting him off mid-lecture — "Dad, no more TED Talks today" — to make that click.

In this conversation, Jeremy gets into the class that nearly ended his law career, the book he'd never talked about publicly until now, why he keeps a "captain's log" of half-formed ideas, the "make this worse" game he uses to break a room open, and the one thing AI can't do for you: have something to say.

For founders, operators, and builders working the move from operator to authority to icon — this one's worth your time.

—

Guest: Jeremy Sirota, Chief Commercial Officer at Suno Host: Matt Stone

Millions of people drive, deliver, and hustle to power the American economy — and most of them are invisible to the financial system that's supposed to serve them.

Ricky Michel Presbot, co-founder and CEO of Ualett, decided to do something about it.

In this episode, Ricky shares how a failed early venture, a cab ride from JFK, and a chance encounter at a funeral led to the creation of a bilingual fintech platform now serving gig workers across the United States — with a $150 million credit facility to grow nationwide.

We go deep on the idea of the "multi-hustler economy," why niche is the X factor for any business, what Ricky learned driving Uber for three months before building his product, and why the company's central value isn't "believe in us" — it's "we believe in you."

This is a story about trust, dignity, and building something for people who've been left behind.

Topics covered:

• The cab ride from JFK that revealed a $150M opportunity
• Why the gig economy is everyone's economy
• The "multi-hustler" — a new category beyond the gig worker
• How Ualett works (and why it's not a predatory cash advance)
• The funeral pitch that started everything
• Building company values from a mentor relationship
• Why going to the field is non-negotiable before building a product
• What "we believe in you" actually means as a business model

Connect with Ricky: Ualett — https://ualett.com LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/in/ricky-michel-presbot-14964472