One The Come Up is a weekly podcast where I (a high school student) interview founders, builders, and Wall Street denizens. The name of the podcast comes from the term on the come up, which means (according to Urban Dictionary): [something] on the vurge [sic] of blowin' up or makin' some serious noise. Of course, this podcast is located around the corner from all seminal happenstance. For my listeners who take their lexicon from Webster's, this podcast is chic, urbane, and eclectic. The unifying thread? (this podcast does not consider itself a series of odds and ends): all my guests are at the start of their careers--their especially auspicious careers. And it's from this latter fact, that on takes the extra e, simultaneously commanding itself at the front of the cardinal numbers and becoming a homophone for won. Ibidem, One the Come Up.
No professional recording equipment gives this podcast a vintage feel.
Alexandra Cavoulacos -- COO of Backerkit, co-founder of The Muse
For today's episode, I was joined by Alexandra Cavoulacos. A Paris native, Cavoulacos crossed the Atlantic to study at Yale, where she initially pursued molecular, cellular, and developmental biology before switching to political science. She worked at McKinsey for three years before leaving to cofound The Muse in 2011. We discussed her transition from consulting to entrepreneurship, how The Muse helps job seekers navigate the unwritten rules of the professional world, and her experience coauthoring the bestselling book The New Rules of Work. We also explored her subsequent ventures in Web3 and crowdfunding, her current role as COO of BackerKit, and her advice on career exploration, mentorship, and the importance of working with talented people.
2 Oct 2026
Thor Retzlaff -- Wasted*
Today I was joined by Thor Retlzaff, co-founder of Wasted*, a urine-mining company that turns pee into fertilizer via infrastructure (such as porta potties). Retlaff's career began at Lewis and Clark College, where he majored in anthropology and sociology. Inspiration would come to Retralaff and his cofounders through a series of mountaineering expeditions in the backcountry of the Arctic, Patagonia, Nepal, and in their backyard of Lake Tahoe. On these adventures, they were exposed to the human waste crisis happening in our pristine natural ecosystems — where untreated waste was leaking from pits into the surrounding environment; this originally spawned the nonprofit Do Good Sh*t. In 2020, Retlzaff and his cofounders started Wasted* after realizing that "liquid gold" is filled with vital nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen that can be used in our fertilizer. Today, Wasted* is working on expanding beyond the New England states and bringing to market The Can -- which is a fully independent operating porta potty that can create fertilizer all on its own and requires 90% less water than typical porta potties.
25 Sept 2026
Tessa Zimmerman -- Upstream Education
Tessa Zimmerman was the inaugural graduate of the Watson Institute's partnership with Lynn University, where she earned a first-of-its-kind bachelor's degree in Social Entrepreneurship. Inspired by her own experience of struggling with anxiety in the classroom and the lack of mental health resources in schools, Zimmerman wrote her college thesis on training and equipping teachers with bite-sized well-being tools. This idea later became her nonprofit, Upstream Education. Today, Upstream partners with individual educators, schools, and districts to equip them with bite-sized well-being tools based on mindfulness and positive psychology practices. Upstream is one of the first nonprofits on the podcast, and Zimmerman and I discuss the business models of nonprofits, how grant funding works, and how being a nonprofit allows Upstream to expand its reach.
Who has been a guest on ONE The Come UP
Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.
Amy Zitelman
Rachel Mercer
Nathanael Ren
Emily Hazelwood
Amber Sparks
Podcast Authority Score: 18 / 100
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