I Quit! Why This Successful VC Blew Up His Career to Find Purpose

Have you ever felt like you climbed the wrong mountain? That moment when you realize success on paper doesn't equal happiness?

Today on Mork Unfiltered, we dive into the raw, honest story of Sergio Massano—the Portuguese investor who walked away from the cushy world of venture capital to build an investment platform driven by values, not just profit.

Sergio, a former engineer and VC partner, wasn't just burnt out; he was searching for alignment. He opens up about how he redefined success, making two massive career pivots—including quitting a "lifetime job" at 25 to backpack across the Trans-Siberian Railway and, years later, leaving VC to found Altas, a platform focused on long-term stewardship.

This episode is essential listening for anyone navigating the "messy middle of success", especially those feeling the pressure to grow at all costs. Sergio offers a powerful, alternative vision for business and life that prioritizes integrity and community.

💡 Key Insights That Will Change How You Work & Live:

• The Uncomfortable Truth About Being Replaceable: Sergio shares the counterintuitive philosophy that you can only be truly indispensable if you are fully replaceable. Learn how this mindset frees you up for opportunity and builds resilient teams.
• The Problem with VC and the "Growth at All Costs" Lie: Understand why many European business owners would rather shut down their generational company and redistribute assets to employees than sell to private equity. Your business is not just a profit engine; it's a village.
• The Mid-Career Pivot Guide: Sergio reveals his ritual for revisiting his 10-year vision every year to ensure he never gets stuck climbing the wrong mountain.

🛠️ 3 Actionable Takeaways for Your Week:

1. Build Your "Safe Space" Village: When self-doubt hits, stop isolating. Immediately talk to your trusted family, friends, or coach—the problem is always bigger in your head than in reality.
2. Define Your Values: Gain clarity on your core values to make difficult life and business decisions easier, faster, and more aligned with your purpose.
3. Become Obsessed (The Founder’s Secret): The best founders aren't just smart; they are obsessed and can communicate that vision to build and retain incredible teams.

🌟 Hire Patrick to speak about Purpose, Resilience and the world of startups: https://patrickmork.com/speaking

Don't just climb the ladder the fastest; make sure it's leaning against the right wall. Click play and start leading your life with intention.

If this episode moved you or gave you a different lens on adversity and growth, I want to invite you to go deeper.

I wrote Step Back and Leap for people exactly like us. People building through chaos. People trying to find meaning inside uncertainty. People choosing purpose over comfort. You can get it here:
https://a.co/d/e4nd8RT

And if you want practical tools you can use today to strengthen your resilience, I created a short, tactical guide you can download immediately. It’s called The Mork Guide to Resilience and it is designed to help you build inner strength, recover faster, and lead from a grounded place:
https://aa5c-ea.systeme.io/resilience

Because sometimes the most powerful leaps forward start with stepping back, grounding yourself, and reconnecting to why you are here in the first place.

— Patrick

👉Download Morks Guide to Resilience: https://aa5c-ea.systeme.io/resilience

🌟 Hire Patrick to speak about Purpose, Resilience and the world of startups: https://patrickmork.com/speaking

Welcome back to More Unfiltered, folks!

This episode is one every founder needs to stop and listen to. We're pulling back the curtain on the single most critical, yet most messed-up, part of building a successful company: Hiring and Recruiting.

I'm sitting down with the legendary Amy Vernetti, who has spent over 25 years at the intersection of talent and impact, building leadership teams for startups and giants alike. Amy worked directly with Larry Page and Sergey Brin, and has incredible insights into how the Google founders approached building one of the world's most successful tech companies. She even shares how she ran searches and observed how seriously they took recruiting, using an app-based feedback system immediately after interviews.

Amy drops absolute bombs on what separates a good recruiter from a fraud, why curiosity is your secret weapon, and how the concept of pattern recognition comes from interviewing hundreds of executives (she's like an LLM that's been trained for decades!).

In This BOLD Conversation, We Cover:

-The Larry & Sergey Lesson: Why they took recruiting so seriously, took the time to conduct a proper interview , and put feedback in the app right after an interview.

-The Hard Truth About Ageism: What startups are missing when they rule out senior, experienced candidates (HINT: It's historical perspective and wisdom!).

-Diversity Beyond Quotas: The perfect "alchemy" of diverse teams and how a good leader gets the most out of their team to spur innovation.

-The Biggest Founder Mistake: Why viewing recruiting as an "aggravating thing" rather than the most important thing they will do is a path to failure.

-AI and the Future of Search: Amy's take on how AI is impacting the industry, and why somebody who knows how to use AI is going to take your job.

If you're treating recruiting as a checkbox, you're already way behind. This is a leadership discipline. Tune in, take notes, and tell us your biggest takeaway in the comments!

If this episode moved you or gave you a different lens on adversity and growth, I want to invite you to go deeper.

I wrote Step Back and Leap for people exactly like us. People building through chaos. People trying to find meaning inside uncertainty. People choosing purpose over comfort. You can get it here:
https://a.co/d/e4nd8RT

And if you want practical tools you can use today to strengthen your resilience, I created a short, tactical guide you can download immediately. It’s called The Mork Guide to Resilience and it is designed to help you build inner strength, recover faster, and lead from a grounded place:
https://aa5c-ea.systeme.io/resilience

Because sometimes the most powerful leaps forward start with stepping back, grounding yourself, and reconnecting to why you are here in the first place.

— Patrick

Are you chasing the wrong version of success?

In this raw, solo episode of Mork Unfiltered, recorded from Singapore, I unpack a powerful mindset shift that could change how you live your life.

After flying 24 hours to spend time with my 81-year-old father for the 25th anniversary of Insead's Singapore campus, I was reminded of the real stuff that makes life rich: experiences over stuff, connection over convenience, and meaning over metrics.

Whether you're feeling burned out, stuck in the rat race, disconnected from your parents or kids—or just wondering what the hell it's all for—this episode is a gut check.

🧠 3 Things You’ll Walk Away With:

1. Why experiences—not possessions—are the true currency of a meaningful life
   (and how to create more of them starting now, even if you’re not jet-setting across the world).
2. How to reconnect with aging parents before it’s too late
   (and why being present for them might also bring unexpected healing for you).
3. A new way to define success that actually sustains you
   (plus a simple tool to assess your life across 8 critical areas—from health to relationships to purpose).

🎯 Why Listen:

This isn’t some feel-good talk. It’s a wake-up call to check in with yourself:
Are you actually living, or just hoarding?
Are your relationships thriving—or surviving?
Is your definition of success yours, or someone else’s?

You’ll walk away with clarity, motivation, and a powerful tool and proven framework I use with coaching clients to identify where you're thriving, where you're struggling, and how to realign your life with what actually matters.

✅ If you’re ready to stop drifting and start designing a more connected, energized, and purpose-driven life—this one’s for you.

💡 Want to go deeper?
Download your free copy of Mork’s Guide to Resilience—a practical workbook to help you apply these lessons and start redefining success on your own terms. https://aa5c-ea.systeme.io/resilience

As always, if this episode spoke to you, helped you and could help others, please subscribe, like, comment or share. This means the world to me and the team and helps the podcast grow and help others.

Until next time!

If this episode moved you or gave you a different lens on adversity and growth, I want to invite you to go deeper.

I wrote Step Back and Leap for people exactly like us. People building through chaos. People trying to find meaning inside uncertainty. People choosing purpose over comfort. You can get it here:
https://a.co/d/e4nd8RT

And if you want practical tools you can use today to strengthen your resilience, I created a short, tactical guide you can download immediately. It’s called The Mork Guide to Resilience and it is designed to help you build inner strength, recover faster, and lead from a grounded place:
https://aa5c-ea.systeme.io/resilience

Because sometimes the most powerful leaps forward start with stepping back, grounding yourself, and reconnecting to why you are here in the first place.

— Patrick

Ahmad “AL” Fares did not just build a company. He built a mission born out of necessity, pain and a belief that connectivity is the gateway to human possibility.

In this powerful conversation, AL sits down with Patrick and shares how growing up in the slums of Beirut during civil war, surviving with limited access to the internet and later traveling to more than 100 countries shaped his vision for Calitech, the one click programmable eSIM platform now powering global travel giants.

This episode is a wake up call for every founder in the messy middle. For every entrepreneur who doubts themselves. For every creator who is building something meaningful and fighting internal and external voices telling them to quit. AL shows how purpose becomes armor. How connection creates opportunity. How frustration can become the spark for global impact.

Inside the episode:

• How struggle in Beirut became the fuel that shaped his mission
• Why suffering through roaming pain worldwide led to a new category
• How to protect your mindset when family and friends doubt you
• Why co-founders are not just hires but marriages
• Why entrepreneurs need to embrace failure as data and fuel
• The future of connectivity across satellite, cellular and the cloud

Listen to this episode if you want to build something bigger than revenue. Bigger than a trend. Bigger than one market. This is for those who choose to build with purpose.

If this episode moved you or gave you a different lens on adversity and growth, I want to invite you to go deeper.

I wrote Step Back and Leap for people exactly like us. People building through chaos. People trying to find meaning inside uncertainty. People choosing purpose over comfort. You can get it here:
https://a.co/d/e4nd8RT

And if you want practical tools you can use today to strengthen your resilience, I created a short, tactical guide you can download immediately. It’s called The Mork Guide to Resilience and it is designed to help you build inner strength, recover faster, and lead from a grounded place:
https://aa5c-ea.systeme.io/resilience

Because sometimes the most powerful leaps forward start with stepping back, grounding yourself, and reconnecting to why you are here in the first place.

— Patrick

When Valerie Bowden volunteered in Africa, she thought she was helping. What she discovered instead would shatter her view of charity forever.

After uncovering heartbreaking corruption in the aid industry, Valerie made a bold choice — to stop “helping” and start building. From that moment, she dedicated her life to creating meaningful impact through entrepreneurship. Today, she’s the founder and CEO of CRDLE, an outsourcing company connecting US businesses with world-class African talent and giving hundreds of women the chance to thrive.

In this powerful conversation, we dive into how Valerie turned pain into purpose and built a business that proves impact and profit can truly coexist.

This episode is a reminder that even when systems are broken, one person’s conviction can rewrite the rules — and spark hope for thousands.

If this episode moved you or gave you a different lens on adversity and growth, I want to invite you to go deeper.

I wrote Step Back and Leap for people exactly like us. People building through chaos. People trying to find meaning inside uncertainty. People choosing purpose over comfort. You can get it here:
https://a.co/d/e4nd8RT

And if you want practical tools you can use today to strengthen your resilience, I created a short, tactical guide you can download immediately. It’s called The Mork Guide to Resilience and it is designed to help you build inner strength, recover faster, and lead from a grounded place:
https://aa5c-ea.systeme.io/resilience

Because sometimes the most powerful leaps forward start with stepping back, grounding yourself, and reconnecting to why you are here in the first place.

— Patrick

In today’s episode, we’re diving deep into some of the toughest and most rewarding parts of leadership and life.

From managing Millennials and Gen Z, to giving feedback that actually helps your people grow, to understanding what really matters to your team beyond profits. We’ll also talk about facing fear head-on, how to overcome it using Tim Ferriss’s “fear setting” method, and what it truly means to be a parent and a leader in a world that doesn’t always say thank you.

This one’s personal.

After 15 episodes, I realized this should have been Episode One. In this recording from Santo Domingo, I strip everything back to share why I created Mork Unfiltered and why I’m redefining what this podcast is really about.

It’s about the messy middle of success, the power of vulnerability in leadership, and the hard truth that most companies don’t actually care about people; they care about profits. But real leadership? It’s about time. It’s about developing others. And it’s about creating the psychological safety that lets people grow and speak the truth.

And then there’s the message from my son. A simple voice note that nearly brought me to tears and reminded me that parenting, just like leadership, isn’t about being liked. It’s about showing up, setting values, and giving your time.

This episode is a reintroduction. A reset. A reminder that life, leadership, and love are all about learning in the messy middle.

If this episode moved you or gave you a different lens on adversity and growth, I want to invite you to go deeper.

I wrote Step Back and Leap for people exactly like us. People building through chaos. People trying to find meaning inside uncertainty. People choosing purpose over comfort. You can get it here:
https://a.co/d/e4nd8RT

And if you want practical tools you can use today to strengthen your resilience, I created a short, tactical guide you can download immediately. It’s called The Mork Guide to Resilience and it is designed to help you build inner strength, recover faster, and lead from a grounded place:
https://aa5c-ea.systeme.io/resilience

Because sometimes the most powerful leaps forward start with stepping back, grounding yourself, and reconnecting to why you are here in the first place.

— Patrick

What does it take to build a tech company in a country where everything seems to be falling apart?

In this episode of Mork Unfiltered, I sit down with Juan José Pocaterra, Founder & Chairman of Vikua and Co-founder & CEO of Wawa — two companies transforming how people live and move across Latin America.

Juan’s story is extraordinary. From navigating Venezuela’s political and economic chaos to scaling across 18 cities in three countries, he’s proof that purpose and perseverance can build light even in the darkest places.

We dive into:

• The birth of Vikua and Wawa, and why fixing broken systems starts with data and courage
• How he and his wife co-founded Wawa — and stayed married through it
• The faith that kept him going when he had only 10 days of cash left
• And why real entrepreneurs build not just for profit, but for people

If you’ve ever wondered how resilience really looks in practice, this is it.

If this episode moved you or gave you a different lens on adversity and growth, I want to invite you to go deeper.

I wrote Step Back and Leap for people exactly like us. People building through chaos. People trying to find meaning inside uncertainty. People choosing purpose over comfort. You can get it here:
https://a.co/d/e4nd8RT

And if you want practical tools you can use today to strengthen your resilience, I created a short, tactical guide you can download immediately. It’s called The Mork Guide to Resilience and it is designed to help you build inner strength, recover faster, and lead from a grounded place:
https://aa5c-ea.systeme.io/resilience

Because sometimes the most powerful leaps forward start with stepping back, grounding yourself, and reconnecting to why you are here in the first place.

— Patrick

Let’s be honest—most people suck at setting goals. We make resolutions in January, and by February they’re already dead.

Why? Because we set the wrong goals, in the wrong way.

In this episode of Mork Unfiltered, I break down what I’ve learned about goal setting from years of coaching leaders, teams, and writing my book Step Back and Leap. I’ll share why most people fail, and more importantly, how you can build goals that last.

Here’s what I cover:

• The real reason most people give up on goals
• How to set goals that align with your values and identity
• Why goals build confidence, growth, and resilience
• How to use the SMART framework without overcomplicating things
• Practical tools to track progress and stay accountable

This isn’t theory. It’s the same stuff I use with executives and teams around the world—and it works.

If you’ve ever struggled to follow through, listen in. This episode will give you the tools to finally make your goals stick.

If this episode moved you or gave you a different lens on adversity and growth, I want to invite you to go deeper.

I wrote Step Back and Leap for people exactly like us. People building through chaos. People trying to find meaning inside uncertainty. People choosing purpose over comfort. You can get it here:
https://a.co/d/e4nd8RT

And if you want practical tools you can use today to strengthen your resilience, I created a short, tactical guide you can download immediately. It’s called The Mork Guide to Resilience and it is designed to help you build inner strength, recover faster, and lead from a grounded place:
https://aa5c-ea.systeme.io/resilience

Because sometimes the most powerful leaps forward start with stepping back, grounding yourself, and reconnecting to why you are here in the first place.

— Patrick