I Make Things Change with Cindy Gallop

Today’s interview might not be safe for work — but Cindy Gallop thinks it should be. She joins us to talk about why we all need to be a lot better at talking about sex, what it’s like to found and scale a sex tech company, and why working for yourself is the best thing you can do.

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Cindy is the founder and CEO of Make Love Not Porn, a social sex site that wants to “make it easier to talk about sex for everyone in the world,” and a former advertising executive who’s spent years demanding diversity in companies and on stages. We talk with her about building her business despite an industry that’s way too anxious about funding sex tech, why she doesn’t rely on rational arguments about diversity anymore, and how she intends to build the “sex tech full stack” and bring about world peace. Yes, world peace.

Cindy Gallop, founder and CEO of Make Love Not Porn

Fear of what other people will think is the single most paralyzing dynamic in business and in life. You will never own the future if you care what other people think. And so I began doing what I tell other entrepreneurs to do, which is when you have a truly world-changing startup, you have to change the world to fit it, not the other way around… If reality tells me that I cannot grow Make Love Not Porn the way I want to, then I am going to change reality.

We talk about:

• Launching Make Love Not Porn in 2009 with her infamous TED talk
• The challenges of funding and scaling Make Love Not Porn
• Creating and raising money for All The Sky Holdings to fund sex tech companies and the infrastructure they need to operate
• How to change the “closed loop of white guys talking to white guys about other white guys” that’s at the top of every company
• Why we should talk about our sexual values as much as we talk about values like manners, work ethic, and accountability

Follow Cindy: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

Also in this episode

• Cleaning out the undie drawer, buying nice lingerie, and what it’s like to have our very personal lives and our professional lives meet
• The endless bra ads on Instagram (and how many of them make you feel like you have a problem body
• Saying one more fuck yeah to Christine Blasey Ford, and the incredible effort she and so many survivors of sexual violence have made to share their stories — or just keep surviving — during the past few weeks

☞ And there’s always a full transcript.

This episode of NYG is brought to you by:

Shopify, a leading global commerce platform that’s building a diverse, intelligent, and motivated team — and they want to apply to you. Visit shopify.com/careers to see what they’re talking about.

Harvest, makers of awesome software to help you track your time, manage your projects, and get paid. Try it free, then use code NOYOUGO to get 50% off your first paid month.