Episode 16
She Fled Vietnam at Birth. Amazon & Google Pay Her to Fix Teams using Curiosity. | Dr. Julie Pham
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Dr. Julie Pham came to the United States as a boat person fleeing communist Vietnam. She earned her PhD in history at Cambridge as a Gates Cambridge Scholar, graduated magna cum laude from UC Berkeley, and got what she calls her "real life MBA" by running her family's Vietnamese language newspaper through the Great Recession. In the middle of a pandemic, she left a stable career to found CuriosityBased — and she has not looked back. In this episode, Julie shares why freedom is her definition of prosperity, the moment her father told her "now you will have freedom," and how her understanding of curiosity evolved from knowledge accumulation to a daily practice rooted in self-awareness, relationship building, and clear communication. She walks us through the 7 Forms of Respect framework — her #1 Amazon bestselling book that she compares to the 5 Love Languages but for the workplace — and demonstrates it live with Brandi in real time. They go deep on building across differences, the through line connecting Julie's two books (the South Vietnamese military experience and workplace respect), and the capital gap facing women founders: $34 trillion in assets by 2030, yet less than 2% of venture capital reaching women-led startups. Julie's answer reframes the conversation entirely: stop giving advice, start sharing numbers, and deploy your social capital. Founder, 7 Forms of Respect CEO, CuriosityBased Connect with Dr. Julie Pham: curiositybased.com formsofrespect.com LinkedIn: Julie Pham, PhD TEDx Talk: "Curiosity as a Practice" Book: 7 Forms of Respect (Amazon)
Show Notes
00:00 — Welcome & Guest Introduction 01:24 — Why You Should Keep Listening 01:50 — Prosperity Question: "Freedom" 02:05 — Julie's Family Story: Boat People, Vietnamese Newspaper, Refugee Entrepreneurship 03:00 — Career Arc: Newspaper to Tech to Pandemic Founding 03:30 — "As Long As I Was an Employee, I Couldn't Own My Work" 04:00 — Father's Response: "Now You Will Have Freedom" 05:00 — "I'm More of a Dot Connector" 05:45 — How Julie's Definition of Curiosity Changed 07:30 — Curiosity as a Practice: Three Elements 08:35 — The Public Humiliation That Became a TEDx Talk 09:15 — Curiosity Is Not a Trait — It's a Practice 10:30 — The Snarky Email: When Julie Didn't Practice It 11:30 — 7 Forms of Respect: "More Like 5 Love Languages" 12:00 — Brandi & Julie Share Their Forms of Respect 14:00 — Why Punctuality, Candor, and Consistency Run Deeper Than Rules 15:30 — Brandi: 21 Years of Dance and the Standard It Set 17:00 — Brandi: Trump Properties to Employee of the Year 17:40 — What It Takes to Build Across Differences 18:45 — "One Plus One Equals Three" 20:00 — Two Books, One Through Line: "Multiple Truths Can Coexist" 20:40 — Vietnam War: Three Names for April 30th 22:50 — Has the Founder Lens Pulled You to the Other Side of the Table? 24:15 — The Capital Gap: $34 Trillion, 2%, and 78 Cents 27:25 — Julie: Women Need to Talk About Numbers With Each Other 28:20 — Ruby Love: "You Need to Charge Twice as Much" 28:50 — Social Capital: "I'm Gonna Put My Reputation on the Line" 29:05 — Brandi: That's Why I Created Sacral Sisters 29:45 — Julie: "It's Really Difficult for Women to Do Well If We Don't All Do Well" 31:15 — Julie: "What Did You Pay the Last Speaker?" 31:30 — Where to Find Dr. Julie Pham 33:00 — Julie's Next Book: Respect in Friendships 33:15 — Branded Close
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