About David and Jon

David A. Tieche is a Teaching Pastor at WestGate Church, a multi-ethnic, multi-campus, non-denominational church in San Jose, California.  A former high school English teacher, David is known for his skill at making the Bible come alive and his ability to weave in references to Star Wars and/or 90s hip-hop into any subject imaginable.

He met Jon in 1994, when they started as Media Fellows at DePauw University.

He is the co-author of several books, including The Grown-Up’s Guide to Teenage Humans with Josh Shipp, Straight Up: Honest, Unfiltered, As-Real-As-I-Can-Put-It Advice for Life’s Biggest Challenges with former NFL player Trent Shelton, and I Take My Coffee Black and This Changes Everything with Tyler Merritt.

David lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with his wife, Nicole, and their beloved Westie, Jack-Jack. They have two college-aged children, Justus and Jaelle.

Jon Fortt is a journalist specializing in business, leadership and innovation. He has worked at CNBC, Fortune, Business 2.0 Magazine, the San Jose Mercury News and the Lexington Herald-Leader. Jon has interviewed hundreds of founders and CEOs of impactful companies including Amazon, Apple, Dell, Facebook, Microsoft, Nvidia and OpenAI.

David was the best man in Jon’s wedding; Jon was the best man in David’s.

The son of a minister and an artist, Jon is fascinated by questions of how people build things and why. In his spare time he is a songwriter, graphic artist and photographer. He has also designed and built digital tools including the Fortt Media Bible Glossary, the Fortt Media Study Bible and Fortt Media’s Complete Works of Shakespeare.

Jon lives in the New York City Metropolitan Area with his wife, Gina; they have two sons, Nathan and Benjamin, and a cat, Opal.