The Josh Boone Show

#17: Felix Velarde – Pessimistic Optimism & Existential Threats

• Episode 17

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Today Josh talks with Felix Velarde about the potential optimistic and pessimistic futures ahead and the compound interest of positive impact.

Felix is a strategist, author, speaker, lecturer, and pioneer of the internet. He started one of the world’s first web design companies in 1994. He then had a high-profile, twenty-year career as a serial founder of several innovative digital creative and strategy agencies, including being chairman at pioneering CRM firm Underwired and CEO of The Conversation Group.

He co-created “Head-Space”, which Forbes has described as one of the world’s ten most influential websites. He has been the subject of a BBC documentary and has won many of the world’s biggest creative and marketing awards.

He taught on the MBA program as an adjunct professor at Hult International, one of the world’s top business schools. He was part of the organizing team and the UK lead of People-Centered Internet, a non-profit organization chaired by the Internet’s co-inventor and architect Vint Cerf.

Currently, Felix is the CEO of 2Y3X, a two-year commercial growth accelerator program to help startups achieve long-term sustainable growth, and recently the author of the book, Scale at Speed.

Some of the other topics we dive into are:

  • Pessimistic optimism and the existential threats ahead.
  • The decline of Western civilization.
  • The fractionalization of the United States.
  • Purpose, empathy, and nihilism.
  • Life as an outsider of society.
  • Venal politicians, special interests, and conspiracy theories.
  • The stress and barriers to scaling a business.
  • Overachievers and universal imposter syndrome.
  • The compound interest of positive impact.
  • The power and consequences of being a content creator.
  • And lots more.


Connect with Felix:


Music by Kirby Johnston – check out his band Aldaraia on Spotify