Marina Mogilko
Photo courtesy of Marina Mogilko

In an industry built on velocity, Marina Mogilko is choosing precision.

The entrepreneur and YouTube creator behind the Silicon Valley Girl YouTube series is expanding the series into a podcast, which will be available on all major podcast platforms starting June 4. While it may seem common for creators to transition to audio formats, Mogilko's move represents not just a change in medium but a shift in approach. The message is clear: slow down, dig deeper.

And if there's anyone positioned to lead that conversation globally, it's Mogilko, whose portfolio spans edtech, media, angel investment, and a viewership base that stretches across Europe, Southeast Asia, and the Americas.

'I'm interested in what we don't talk about when we talk about success,' Mogilko tells IBTimes UK. 'The internal cost, the trade-offs. The nuance you lose when everything's edited for virality.'

Born in St. Petersburg and now based in the U.S., Mogilko is no stranger to reverse engineering systems not built with her in mind. After navigating the U.S. student visa process, she co-founded LinguaTrip, a language learning and study-abroad platform that now serves users in over 50 countries. Her rise as a content creator followed a similarly DIY trajectory: she built her audience from scratch on YouTube by demystifying topics like immigration, business formation, and digital work.

Nearly a decade on, she's running three successful YouTube channels (including Silicon Valley Girl), operating a growing investment portfolio, and serving as a mentor to emerging female founders.

What Mogilko has mastered is scalability without dilution—applying the discipline of a founder and the instincts of a media operator. With over 17 million followers across platforms, she's carved out a space few other creators occupy: fluent in the language of algorithms and balance sheets alike.

The podcast reboot of Silicon Valley Girl is timed to coincide with a cultural moment where business, tech, and personal identity are colliding in unpredictable ways. Mogilko's launch slate reads like a cross-section of modern leadership: Coco Rocha, on the evolution from fashion icon to founder; Reid Hoffman, on scaling responsibly in the AI era; Jenny Lei, on Gen Z entrepreneurship and financial pressure; and Blake Scholl, on building aerospace startups under real-world constraints.

But Mogilko isn't chasing name recognition. She's after psychological depth. Her interviews skew toward the inflection points: breakdowns, reinventions, unpopular decisions—the parts of entrepreneurship that don't always translate to a LinkedIn post.

'This isn't about platforming success stories,' she says. 'It's about mapping what it actually looks like to build under pressure, across cultures, and through failure.'

Unlike many business podcasts produced from Silicon Valley for Silicon Valley, Mogilko's voice carries international weight. Her background, language fluency, and digital reach give her the kind of hybrid credibility that increasingly matters to a generation of founders building from Lagos, Lisbon, or Lahore.

While the U.S. remains a key market, Mogilko's audience data tells a broader story: a growing appetite for grounded, globally aware business media from digital-first professionals who don't see themselves in traditional coverage. That reach has already attracted partnerships with Google, Forbes, and edtech investors alike, and her approach as an angel investor continues that theme, backing early-stage startups led by women, immigrants, and cross-border operators.

Future Silicon Valley Girl episodes will widen the aperture. Mogilko plans to feature creators-turned-operators, international fund managers, and those quietly reshaping sectors like sustainability, fintech, and decentralised education. Think less tech hype, more decision-making under pressure.

She's particularly focused on founders building outside traditional capital hubs, where infrastructure is weak but innovation is strong. And as macroeconomic conditions tighten, she sees more value in spotlighting those who know how to scale deliberately rather than explosively.

'We need fewer icons,' she says. 'And more examples of what real, durable entrepreneurship actually looks like.'

In that sense, Silicon Valley Girl is as much a listening tool as it is a platform, tracking not just who's building next, but how they're doing it, and what it's costing them in the process.

Silicon Valley Girl will be available on major podcast platforms starting June 4th. New episodes will be released weekly. Learn more at www.siliconvalleygirl.com or follow Marina Mogilko on YouTube.