Kefir...from $116 to Billion-Dollar Brand...CEO Lifeway Foods, Julie Smolyansky.

Julie Smolyansky is the CEO of Lifeway Foods, shares her incredible and inspiring story!

Imagine arriving in America as an infant with nothing but one suitcase, $116 in cash, and parents who didn’t speak a word of English.

By age 27, she was the youngest female CEO of a publicly traded company in American history.

But what most people don’t know is what happened behind the scenes:

✅ She watched her father smuggle live kefir cultures from the USSR.

✅ She took over the business overnight—while critics said she’d fail.

✅ She turned a niche Eastern European product into a household name across the U.S.

✅ And yes—she even sent a case of kefir to President Reagan for his summit with Gorbachev.

This isn’t just a story about entrepreneurship. It’s about resilience, conviction, and proving the doubters wrong.

Today, her brand fuels a multi-billion-dollar category—and inspires immigrants, women, and entrepreneurs everywhere.

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Step past the Red Velvet Rope.

Subscribe to Zeitgeist and catch Episode 3 now.

The Zeitgeist podcast is brought to you by Cameo, Personalized videos from your favorite stars. Book yours here: https://www.cameo.com/

From Uber to Unicorn: Reinventing the $100B booze biz.

He started with a Google Sheet and a whiskey collector who didn’t know he was sitting on a million dollars.

Phil Mikhailov is CEO and Co-Founder of Unicorn Auctions, the largest wine and spirits auction platform in the U.S., managing $100M+ in inventory and doing $1M in digital bottle trades monthly—without a drop being shipped.

No VC pitch decks.

Just product-market fit, handwritten notes, and Carmelo Anthony as investor #1.

What started in a Chicago vault has now gone global—with 90% of customers coming organically.

This is what it looks like when:

-Tech meets trust

- Collecting becomes community

- And bourbon becomes an asset class

💬 “Be an owner, not a renter.”

💥 “Done is better than perfect.”

Let this story serve as a reminder:

Revolution doesn’t always start in Silicon Valley. Sometimes, it starts in a wine fridge.

Learn more about Unicorn here: https://www.unicornauctions.com/

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Step past the Red Velvet Rope.

Subscribe to Zeitgeist now.

The Zeitgeist podcast is brought to you by Cameo, Personalized videos from your favorite stars. Book yours here: https://www.cameo.com/

What do a Shark Tank smack down and a life-sized foam butt on MTV have in common?

They built Dude Wipes—a $200M empire that turned baby wipes into a pop culture phenomenon.

In the premiere of Zeitgeist, Cameo co-founder Steven Galanis sits down with Dude Wipes CEO Sean Riley, who didn’t just break the DTC mold—he set it on fire.

Armed with frat-boy hustle and zero apologies, Sean turned an uncomfortable truth (“baby wipes are better”) into a brand that’s rewriting the rules of retail.

This is no MBA case study.

It’s a raw, unfiltered confession packed with:

• How to survive Mark Cuban’s “I’m out” and win him back

• Beating Big Toilet Paper without a big budget

• Riding a toilet paper apocalypse to explosive growth

• Turning bro humor into a retail juggernaut

From frat house burritos to C-suite swagger, Sean spills the stories PR teams wish he’d forget.

If you’re building a brand or burning the rulebook, this is your blueprint to break out.

Step past the Red Velvet Rope.

Subscribe to Zeitgeist and catch Episode 1 now.

The Zeitgeist podcast is brought to you by Cameo, Personalized videos from your favorite stars. Book yours here: https://www.cameo.com/