Julia Zhou, President of the Sigma Squared Society, makes a bold claim: the most radical thing you can do to change the world is to change yourself.
In her engaging DLD26 presentation, she shares how a physical illness early in her life forced her to question everything: her beliefs, her purpose, her way of operating. “That really catapulted me on a journey over the next 10 years to, in a way, walk two paths”, she recalls. One was entrepreneurship, the other asking “why am I doing what I’m doing?”
Over time, those paths merged into one. She calls it “entrepreneurship from the heart” and argues it’s the future of building companies. Zhou brings this philosophy to life through the Sigma Squared Society, a global network of over 1,000 ambitious founders across 35 countries, with more than $2.5 billion in capital raised.
A culture built on friendship turns ambition into kindness, she says, as she highlights members building hydrogen-powered aircraft, biomedical robotics, and personal safety wearables, often backed by trust inside the community.
Watch the video to explore this talk in detail.
