🎙️ Episode 39: Give First - Building a Career on Relationships

In this episode, Warner Moore shares how generosity, authenticity, and a strong sense of community have shaped his leadership journey. Drawing on lessons from Dale Carnegie and the Columbus tech ecosystem, Warner breaks down why the “give first” mindset isn’t just good karma - it’s a career strategy. One that builds trust, drives impact, and creates real opportunities for everyone involved.

💡 Whether you’re early in your tech journey or leading a team, this episode is a powerful reminder that relationships are at the heart of everything we do.

🔑 Highlights:

- Why “give first” works better than transactional networking

- Building trust in the tech community

- The books and mentors that shaped Warner’s values

- How generosity compounds over time

🎧 Available now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you listen.

🙌 Special Thanks to Our Sponsors:

- Rackspace Technology - We advise, design, build, and manage solutions across multicloud, applications, data, and security.

- Varonis - The leader in data security and insider threat detection.

- Trace3 - AI to help your business run, grow, and transform.

- Sigma Computing - Business intelligence built for the cloud. Live, collaborative analytics for data-driven teams.

🎙️ Episode 38: Gotta Find a Way - The Entrepreneur’s Mindset

In this episode, Warner Moore, founder of Gamma Force and a longtime leader in the Midwest tech scene, shares how a rebellious spirit and a love of early internet culture sparked his unconventional path into entrepreneurship.

From teaching himself distributed systems in the days of IRC to building values-driven companies, Warner opens up about what it means to challenge the status quo, lead with authenticity, and find your own way - even when the path doesn’t exist yet.

🎸 Inspired by Nirvana’s Territorial Pissings, this episode explores how music, mindset, and mission can collide to drive meaningful change.

🔑 Highlights:

– Why Warner left the enterprise world to build his own companies

– The mindset behind driving change from the outside

– What Nirvana taught him about leadership

– Building a tech career without asking permission

🎧 Available now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you listen.🙌 Special Thanks to Our Sponsors: • Rackspace Technology - We advise, design, build, and manage solutions across multicloud, applications, data, and security. • Varonis - The leader in data security and insider threat detection. • Trace3 - AI to help your business run, grow, and transform. • Sigma Computing - Business intelligence built for the cloud. Live, collaborative analytics for data-driven teams.

🎙️ Episode 37: Miro Humer - Leading with Empathy, Failing Forward, and Creating Space for InnovationIn this episode of Silicon Heartland Sessions, we sit down with Miro Humer, CIO of Case Western Reserve University, for a powerful and human-centered conversation about leadership, innovation, and the evolving role of technology in higher education.Miro shares his journey from the private sector to academia, the impact of launching the internal GenAI portal CWRU AI, and how his team is helping shape the digital future of the university. But more than just technology, this episode is about building a workplace culture that empowers people, supports failure as a learning tool, and encourages leadership that is empathetic and purposeful.“Within the IT organization, what I try to do is have a culture where failure isn’t necessarily viewed as failure. It’s viewed as a learning experience… That makes for a better work environment. It gives people more control over their work life. And I think that leads us to a happier place to be.”- Miro Humer🎧 Key Insights You’ll Hear in This Episode: • How Miro launched CWRU’s secure, internal AI platform and is shaping AI innovation within higher education • Why empathy and psychological safety are foundational to tech leadership • How to foster a culture where failure leads to learning instead of fear • The importance of creating safe spaces for people to grow, contribute, and lead • What CIOs and tech leaders can learn from academia about long-term thinking and service orientation🙏 Special thanks to our sponsors for supporting the mission of Cloud Nirvana and the Silicon Heartland Sessions:🙌 Rackspace Technology - We advise, design, build, and manage solutions across multicloud, applications, data, and security.🙌 Varonis - The leader in data security and insider threat detection.🙌 Trace3 – AI to help your business run, grow, and transform.🙌 Sigma Computing - Business intelligence built for the cloud. Live, collaborative analytics for data-driven teams.