It's Not Magic is a podcast about building things, without the pretense. Our host is David Stiepleman, Co-Founder and Co-President of Sixth Street, a leading global investment firm. We talk to founders and industry leaders and get them to explain, in plain English, what they do and how they do it. Building a business is a lot of things, but…It’s Not Magic.
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A Conversation with Tekedra Mawakana, Co-CEO of Waymo
In the final episode of It's Not Magic's San Francisco Season, Tekedra Mawakana, Co-CEO of Waymo, joined Sixth Street Co-President David Stiepleman for a Waymo ride around San Francisco and a conversation at our office about the journey of bringing autonomous driving from an innovative project to a daily reality for hundreds of thousands of riders.
As a leader at the forefront of physical AI, Tekedra shares insights on Waymo’s expansion to operating in ten cities, with many more on the horizon, and the rigorous safety standards that have led to a 10x reduction in injury-causing crashes compared to human drivers. A former IP and telecoms lawyer, she reflects on how her background in navigating highly regulated industries and earning stakeholder trust prepared her to lead a company at the intersection of technology, policy, and global operations.
The conversation dives into the reasoning capabilities of the Waymo Driver, her vision for wider applications of Waymo’s technology, the future of urban space in San Francisco and beyond, and why being "deliberate, strategic, and focused" is the right approach for safety-critical innovation.
Thank you to Tekedra for joining us!
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19 Feb 2026
A Conversation with Daniela Amodei, Co-Founder and President of Anthropic
Daniela Amodei, Co-Founder and President of Anthropic, joins us for episode four of It’s Not Magic’s San Francisco season. Founded in San Francisco in 2021 as a Public Benefit Corporation, Anthropic has emerged as a global leader in AI safety and research, known for its flagship model, Claude.
In this episode, Daniela discusses Anthropic's commitment to responsible scaling and how the company has grown to now serve over 300,000 business customers. The conversation dives into the "wonder and fear" of the current moment, covering the pace of model development, the importance of regulation, preserving culture amid rapid growth, and why generalists and specialists need each other to succeed. As a San Francisco native, Daniela also reflects on launching the company in her hometown and why the city's culture of innovation remains the ideal base for their new downtown headquarters.
Thank you to Daniela for this illuminating conversation.
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8 Jan 2026
A Conversation with Ghazi, Founder and CEO of EMPIRE
Episode three of It’s Not Magic’s San Francisco Season features Ghazi, Founder and CEO of EMPIRE and Bay Area native. EMPIRE was founded and built in San Francisco and is now the largest independent record label, distributor, and publisher in the United States, working with artists including Kendrick Lamar, Anderson .Paak, and Shaboozey. Since launching EMPIRE in 2010, Ghazi has built a global powerhouse, known for its innovation, artist-first approach to partnership, and cultural impact that extends far beyond the Bay.
Recorded at Sixth Street’s San Francisco headquarters, Sixth Street Co-President David Stiepleman and Ghazi dive into the city’s legacy of technological innovation and entrepreneurship, how Ghazi’s own technical expertise and creativity were foundational to building EMPIRE, and the role culture is playing in San Francisco’s renewal.
Ghazi underscores how important it was for him to build his dream in the city where he grew up, asking, “Why do I have to go somewhere else to do something I’m good at?” With EMPIRE's recent acquisition of the historic One Montgomery building, Ghazi shares his plans to build EMPIRE’s new headquarters in San Francisco’s financial district and inspire the next wave of energy in the city.
Thank you to Ghazi for joining us for this inspiring conversation.
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Inside a recent episode
A Conversation with Tekedra Mawakana, Co-CEO of Waymo
Published 1 Apr 2026 · Transcript excerpt
[…] She built her career as an intellectual property lawyer navigating the regulatory thickets of telecoms, and realized this training at the intersection of technology and policy prepared her to run one of the most visible businesses in the world. We covered a lot of ground, including how the team's culture of speaking up and slowing down is critical to their safety record, and their overall goal of not going fast and breaking things, but earning trust and winning for the long term. How Takedra and the company think about the broader societal impact of autonomous vehicles and AI generally, why autonomous vehicles stand to fundamentally reshape the infrastructure of cities, how a good manager made her think bigger about her career, and what's down the road for Waymo as they continue to scale their operations. […]
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