You Can't Interrupt: Vlada Bortnik, Co-Founder, Marco Polo

Every day, a 90-year-old nana opens Marco Polo and records a weather report. She's sitting outside. It's sunny, and that's just about the whole message. Some of her grandkids reply and some don't. It's not the point. Her family gets to see her face and know she's alive and well.

Our guest this week is Vlada Bortnik, who co-founded Marco Polo. In Soviet Ukraine, Vlada was a leader in her classroom. She was a kid who stood up for the bullied new girl. Aged 11, she landed in Kansas, and the roles reversed: she was in a new country, with wild curly hair and a name nobody could pronounce. What hurt most wasn't the teasing. It was that this time, nobody stood up for her.

Vlada set out to build the thing she didn't have: a place where people feel seen.

On Marco Polo, you can't interrupt. You talk, they watch when they can, and both of you feel heard in a way even video calls can't manage. Vlada's fully remote employees say they feel closer to each other than when they sat in neighboring cubicles. And when Vlada's team matched total strangers into groups, they became friends. Some even planned vacations together or flew to each other's weddings.

Meanwhile, at the Chamber, Aaron savors a last family weekend before dropping his son at college, complete with birthday cake for his 15-year-old dog. Charlotte paddleboards her slowest crossing ever to a dock rock concert.

00:00 Welcome and Weekend Recap

05:33 Seattle's Play Problem

12:26 Meet Vlada: Ukraine, Kansas, and Being Bullied

17:04 Engineering, Art, Building Things Together

21:03 Building Marco Polo

30:37 Founder Burnout and Separating Self from Company

40:33