Building a Billion-Dollar Unicorn with Julia Collins

Julia Collins has spent much of her life chasing big goals,first to prove herself and then to save the planet.

The path took her from restaurant kitchens in New York City to Silicon Valley boardrooms, where she became the first Black woman to co-found a unicorn and raised more than $450 million in venture capital. But it also came with heartbreak, burnout, a co-founder fallout, and years spent trying to fit into a version of success that never quite felt like her own.

Today, Julia is building companies focused on the future of food and the future of the planet. But getting there required unlearning some of the biggest lessons she thought she knew about ambition, achievement, and self-worth.

In this conversation, Julia sits down with Emma to talk about what was really happening behind the headlines — the pressure to fit in, the cost of tying your identity to your success, and the belief she carried for years that the more she suffered, the more successful she would become.

Julia shares:

Why showing up as herself changed everything — and what it cost her to try fitting in first
What she learned raising hundreds of millions of dollars
How she navigated a co-founder fallout and life-changing exit
The financial habits that shaped her relationship with money
The lesson that took her the longest to unlearn about success and sacrifice

What's a belief about success you've been carrying that might be costing you more than it's giving you? Drop it in the comments. And subscribe to Aspire with Emma Grede so you don't miss what's next.

We'd love to hear what you think. Please take this survey to help us make the show better for you: ⁠emmagrede.com/survey

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