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Embracing Marketing Mistakes

Embracing Marketing Mistakes

EP 119: Moz Founder: 'I Was Making $50M a Year and Miserable'

Jul 14, 2026 · 1h 0m

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Rand Fishkin built Moz into the biggest name in SEO. Then he raised $30 million in venture capital and watched it nearly break him. In this episode, Rand explains why raising venture capital was his biggest mistake, how it led to a battle with depression and his resignation as CEO, and why he is happier, healthier, and making more money today running SparkToro, a company a twentieth the size of Moz. He also breaks down why traffic has always been a vanity metric, how to build a new analytics ...