Gimlet has a new show called Without Fail where Alex talks to all kinds of people — including entrepreneurs and business people — about their successes and their failures and what they’ve learned from both.

We think these conversations are ones that StartUp listeners would enjoy, so we’re bringing them to you here.

Director and screenwriter Sam Esmail’s TV series Mr. Robot was an immediate hit when it premiered in 2015, turning him into one of the most in-demand showrunners in Hollywood. But he didn’t have an easy path to that point. Sam was 38 by the time Mr. Robot launched. He’d worked all kinds of jobs — including a stint as a startup founder — and seen all kinds of setbacks. Sam tells Alex about the stuff that came before, and about why he couldn’t quit trying to make movies, even when success was a long way off.