David Ezell grew up in Louisiana — a place that teaches you early that community, storytelling, and showing up matter. That foundation never left.

He took it into rooms at Meta and Yahoo, where he worked on brand strategy at scale, shaping how some of the world’s biggest platforms tell their stories. Then he did what most strategists don’t: he bet on himself and started building.

Today, David runs Clutch City — a live operator arena in Reno, Nevada where real business owners pressure-test their ideas in public. He hosts How to Ride a Roller Coaster, a podcast about the unfiltered reality of building something that lasts. And he takes the stage as a speaker and emcee at events where people actually want to leave better than they arrived.

The thread through all of it: real people, real stakes, and the kind of conversations that actually move things forward.