A biography, filmed in one sitting

Founder Portraits is a long-form interview show about the lives of people who build companies.

Each episode follows one founder through their story: where they grew up, what they wanted, the decisions they made, and what happened along the way.

Christianne researches every guest before filming, drawing on old interviews, company records and conversations with people who know them. That preparation gives her room to ask better questions and follow an answer somewhere unexpected.

Filmed in NYC. Hosted by Christianne. New episodes weekly.

Why it exists

A founder can tell their company’s origin story hundreds of times without saying much about what it felt like to live through it. With each retelling, some details get sharpened and others disappear.

Founder Portraits makes time for those details. What was happening at home when the company was struggling? Who helped? What did they believe would happen, and when did they start to doubt it?

We’re interested in how a person’s life fits together. Their childhood belongs in the same conversation as their company. So do the relationships, disappointments and decisions that might never appear in a business profile.

Some guests have described the conversation as the closest thing to having their biography written. That’s what we hope to make: a record of someone’s life while they can still tell it themselves.

Influences

Terry Gross, Studs Terkel and Dick Cavett are references for the way Christianne interviews: close listening, careful preparation and a willingness to stay with an answer.

The name comes from portrait painting. An artist spends time with a person, pays attention and makes choices about what to show. The person sitting for the portrait helps shape it, too. We think about the interview in much the same way.

How it’s made

Preparation starts well before the guest arrives. We read filings, build timelines and revisit old interviews. We also speak with people who were there: early employees, co-founders, family and partners.

Those conversations matter because people remember different things. A co-founder might remember the argument before a big decision. A partner might remember what happened when the founder came home that night. Both help us understand what to ask.

We film in NYC, in a fixed studio with three cameras and controlled sound. Each portrait is recorded in one sitting, with a new episode published every week.

Christianne prepares for every taping by reading, building a timeline of the company, and calling the people around the founder: early employees, co-founders, sometimes a sister or a parent.

Based in New York.