How I Built This with Guy Raz

By NPR

Business

What's How I Built This with Guy Raz about?

Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.

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Sub Pop Records: Bruce Pavi...

06.01.2020

Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman were two rock-and-roll fans who met at exactly the right time and place: Seattle in the early 1980s, where a raw hybrid of metal and punk was finding its voice in dingy clubs. With borrowed ...

How I Built This with Guy Raz episodes:

06.01.2020 Sub Pop Records: Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman were two rock-and-roll fans who met at exactly the right time and place: Seattle in the early 1980s, where a raw hybrid of metal and punk was finding its voice in dingy clubs. With borrowed ...
05.30.2020 How I Built Resilience: Live with Alli Webb and Andy Puddicombe & Rich Pierson Alli Webb, co-founder of Drybar, talks with Guy about why she believes that investing time into fashion and beauty is still worthwhile, even though many of us aren't going out much. Founders of the meditation app Headspace, Andy Puddicombe and ...
05.28.2020 How I Built Resilience: Live with Kyle Connaughton and Daniel Humm Kyle Connaughton's restaurant has been impacted by wildfires, floods, and now, the COVID-19 pandemic. Kyle spoke with Guy about keeping SingleThread Farms afloat while giving back to his community with free meals. When Eleven Madison Park closed its doors on ...
05.25.2020 reCAPTCHA and Duolingo: Luis von Ahn In 2000, Luis von Ahn was starting his PhD in computer science when he attended a talk and happened to learn about one of Yahoo's biggest problems: automated bots were signing up for millions of free Yahoo email accounts, and ...
05.23.2020 How I Built Resilience: Live with Sarah LaFleur When Sarah LaFleur started M.M.LaFleur, she wanted to help women dress efficiently and comfortably for the office. Now that most of her customers are working from home, Sarah has to rethink her brand and her marketing to stay relevant. These ...
05.21.2020 How I Built Resilience: Live with Tony Xu and Marcia Kilgore When Tony Xu started DoorDash in 2013, he wanted to help local restaurants stay afloat by introducing them to online delivery. Today, his quest remains the same, now that DoorDash has become an essential business during the COVID-19 pandemic. Marcia ...
05.18.2020 Jo Loves: Jo Malone CBE As a girl in 1970s London, Jo Malone learned how to make face creams by going to work with her mom at a private skin care clinic. By the time she was in her 20's, Jo was running her own ...
05.16.2020 How I Built Resilience: Live with Tobias Lütke and Jon Stein When Tobias Lütke started Shopify, he wanted to empower merchants to start small and build resilience. Tobi spoke with Guy about the relevance of those principles in 2020, as he explains the rise of Shopify sign-ups during the pandemic. Jon ...
05.14.2020 How I Built Resilience: Live with Samin Nosrat and Alice Waters & Fanny Singer Samin Nosrat, the author of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, talks with Guy about unintentionally writing the ultimate quarantine cookbook, and how she's been inspired by the camaraderie among fellow home cooks. Chez Panisse founder Alice Waters and her daughter Fanny ...
05.11.2020 Impossible Foods: Pat Brown When he was nearly 60, Pat Brown left a dream job to pursue an ambitious mission: to create delicious meat from plants. As a biochemist, he'd become alarmed at the destructive impact of meat production on the environment, so he ...
05.09.2020 How I Built Resilience: Live with Stewart Butterfield and Steve Holmes Slack's co-founder Stewart Butterfield wonders what the future of work will look like for his 12 million customers. Springfree Trampoline's co-founder Steve Holmes says the company has seen a 300 percent increase in demand for its products. These conversations are ...
05.07.2020 How I Built Resilience: Live with Christina Tosi and Gary Erickson & Kit Crawford Since March, only five of Milk Bar's 18 locations have been up and running, but founder Christina Tosi tells Guy she is determined to bring the joy of baking to the doorsteps of family, friends, and healthcare workers. Gary Erickson ...
05.04.2020 Cotopaxi: Davis Smith By his mid-30's, Davis Smith had co-founded two businesses. The first ended well, but the second was such a disappointment that he wondered if he should even bother trying again. But he did. In 2014, he launched Cotopaxi, an outdoor ...
04.30.2020 How I Built Resilience: Live with José Andrés When chef José Andrés isn't running Michelin-starred restaurants, he's feeding the masses through World Central Kitchen, a nonprofit he founded that brings food to people during humanitarian crises. The COVID-19 crisis has shut down his restaurants indefinitely, but José is ...
04.27.2020 Fitbit: James Park In 2006, James Park had what he describes as a "lightning bolt" moment when he first used a Nintendo Wii. Fascinated by its motion-tracking controller, James wondered if you could take the technology out of the living room and into ...
04.23.2020 How I Built Resilience: Live with Simon Sinek Each week, Guy is hosting online conversations with founders and entrepreneurs about how they're navigating these turbulent times. Today's conversation is with Simon Sinek, whose books about business — including "Start with Why," and "The Infinite Game" — offer guidance ...
04.20.2020 Brooklinen: Vicki and Rich Fulop On the first day of their Vegas vacation in 2012, Rich and Vicki Fulop sat down on their hotel bed and immediately had the same thought: "These sheets are really nice!" The fabric was the perfect blend of cool, crisp, ...
04.16.2020 How I Built Resilience: Live with David Neeleman and Tristan Walker Each week, Guy will be hosting brief online conversations with founders and members of the How I Built This community about how they're navigating these uncertain times. This past week, Guy spoke with two former guests: David Neeleman of JetBlue ...
04.13.2020 Sweetgreen: Nicolas Jammet and Jonathan Neman Nicolas Jammet and Jonathan Neman met at Georgetown University in 2003 and quickly bonded over their frustration at the lack of healthy food on campus. So during their senior year, along with a third friend, Nathaniel Ru, they decided to ...
04.09.2020 How I Built Resilience: Live with Susan Griffin-Black Each week, Guy will be hosting brief online conversations with founders and members of the How I Built This community about how they're navigating these uncertain times. This past Friday, Guy spoke with Susan Griffin-Black, founder of EO Products. Susan's ...
04.06.2020 S'well: Sarah Kauss In 2009, Sarah Kauss had a well-paying job in real estate development, but she was itching to do something more. On a hike in Tucson with her mom, she got an idea for a business while swigging warm water from ...
04.02.2020 How I Built Resilience: Live with Jeni Britton Bauer Each week, Guy will be hosting brief online conversations with founders and members of the How I Built This community about how they're navigating these uncertain times. This past Friday, Guy spoke with Jeni Britton Bauer, founder of Jeni's Splendid ...
03.30.2020 Sierra Nevada Brewing Company: Ken Grossman Ken Grossman was experimenting with beer before he was old enough to buy it. As a high school student in the late 1960s, he bought his first home brewing kit and mixed the ingredients in a bucket, hiding his early ...
03.23.2020 Ben & Jerry's: Ben Cohen And Jerry Greenfield (2017) In the mid-1970s two childhood friends, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield decided to open an ice cream shop in Burlington, Vermont. Their quirky little shop packaged and sold unusual flavors like Honey Coffee, Mocha Walnut, and Mint with Oreo Cookies. ...
03.16.2020 Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp When Katia Beauchamp and Hayley Barna launched Birchbox from business school in 2010, they set out to disrupt the beauty industry by delivering monthly samples in a box. Even though people told them the idea would never work, Birchbox attracted ...
03.12.2020 Live From The HIBT Summit: Stacy Madison of Stacy's Pita Chips Our ninth episode from the 2019 How I Built This Summit features Stacy Madison, co-founder of Stacy's Pita Chips. In this live conversation with Guy, Stacy explains how pita chips became a passion--even though they didn't start out that way. ...
03.09.2020 Stripe: Patrick and John Collison (2018) Brothers Patrick and John Collison founded and sold their first company before they turned 20. They created software to help eBay users manage inventory online, which set them on a path to help make e-commerce frictionless. Today, John and Patrick ...
03.02.2020 Video Artist: Casey Neistat When Casey Neistat was a teenager, the odds were against him; he had dropped out of high school, was washing dishes to pay rent, and was a father by age 17. But he eventually scraped together enough money to buy ...
02.27.2020 Live From The HIBT Summit: Jeni Britton Bauer of Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams Our eighth episode from the 2019 How I Built This Summit features Jeni Britton Bauer, the founder of Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams. In this live conversation with Guy, Jeni talks about maintaining authenticity while growing her company, and how Columbus, ...
02.24.2020 Lululemon Athletica: Chip Wilson (2018) After noticing more and more people sign up for yoga in the late 1990s, Chip Wilson bet everything on an athletic apparel company aimed toward young professional women. What started as a small pop-up store in Vancouver eventually became the ...
02.17.2020 Eventbrite: Julia Hartz In the early 2000s, Julia Hartz was helping develop TV shows for MTV and FX Networks, and seemed headed for a promising career in television. All of that changed in 2003 when she went to a wedding and found herself ...
02.13.2020 Live From The HIBT Summit: David Neeleman of JetBlue Airways Our seventh episode from the 2019 How I Built This Summit features David Neeleman, the founder of JetBlue Airways. In this live conversation with Guy, David talks about the benefits of having ADD, and why he thinks it's important to ...
02.10.2020 Panera Bread/Au Bon Pain: Ron Shaich (2018) In the early 1980s, Ron Shaich bought a small, struggling Boston bakery chain called Au Bon Pain, and built it out to 250 locations nationwide. Ron then saw an opportunity to build something even bigger: Panera Bread. It was the ...
02.03.2020 M.M.LaFleur: Sarah LaFleur When she was working corporate jobs in New York City, Sarah LaFleur hated getting dressed in the morning; the choices in her closet felt overwhelming, many items didn't fit right or wore out too quickly. So in 2011 she launched ...
01.30.2020 Live From The HIBT Summit: Stewart Butterfield Our sixth episode from the 2019 How I Built This Summit features Stewart Butterfield, the co-founder of Flickr and Slack. Both companies emerged out of failure. In this live conversation with Guy, Stewart describes how he pivoted from two unsuccessful ...
01.27.2020 Wikipedia: Jimmy Wales (2018) During the dot-com boom of the late 1990s, Jimmy Wales was running an internet search company. That's when he began to experiment with the idea of an online encyclopedia. In 2001, Wales launched Wikipedia, a website where thousands of community ...
01.20.2020 Happy Family Organics: Shazi Visram While she was a student at business school, Shazi Visram ran into an old friend-- a new mother of twins. The friend confided she felt like a bad mom because she had no time to make her kids healthy meals. ...
01.13.2020 Spindrift: Bill Creelman Bill Creelman graduated from college in 1996 with a business plan — to sell smoked fish from Nantucket. But over time, that idea morphed unpredictably into a brand that sold cocktail seasonings and supplies. After selling that company to liquor ...
01.09.2020 Live From The HIBT Summit: Marcia Kilgore Our fifth episode from the 2019 How I Built This Summit features serial entrepreneur Marcia Kilgore, founder of Bliss, FitFlop, BeautyPie and more. The animating question behind all of Marcia's business ideas is 'So What?'— if she can't answer it, ...
01.06.2020 Dell Computers: Michael Dell (2018) Before it became fashionable to start a tech company in your dorm room, Michael Dell did exactly that. In 1983, he began selling upgrade kits for PC's out of his dorm at UT Austin. A few months later he dropped ...
12.30.2019 Chicken Salad Chick: Stacy Brown (2018) For many of us, chicken salad is just another sandwich filling, but Stacy Brown turned it into a $75 million business. In 2007, she was a divorced mother of three looking for a way to make ends meet. So she ...
12.26.2019 Live From The HIBT Summit: Tariq Farid Of Edible Arrangements Our fourth episode from the 2019 How I Built This Summit features Tariq Farid, founder of Edible Arrangements. In a live conversation with Guy, Tariq talks about flowers, fruit, and family—and how he wouldn't be where he is without the ...
12.23.2019 Steve Madden: Steve Madden (2018) Steve Madden fell in love with the shoe business in the 1970's, when he sold platform shoes at a neighborhood store in Long Island, New York; that was in high school. About 15 years later, he struck out on his ...
12.19.2019 Live From The HIBT Summit: Kevin Systrom & Mike Krieger Of Instagram Our third live episode from the 2019 How I Built This Summit features Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger, co-founders of Instagram. They talk to Guy about what they've been doing since they stepped down from the company, and whether they ...
12.16.2019 Tate's Bake Shop: Kathleen King Kathleen King was 11 years old when she started baking cookies to sell at her family's farm stand on Long Island. After college, she opened a small bake shop, and eventually started selling her cookies to gourmet grocery stores in ...
12.12.2019 Live From The HIBT Summit: Troy Carter Our second episode from the 2019 How I Built This Summit features founder and investor Troy Carter, who re-started his career in the music business after becoming Lady Gaga's manager. In a live conversation with Guy, he offers advice on ...
12.09.2019 Minted: Mariam Naficy In 2000, Mariam Naficy sold her first company, an online cosmetics store called Eve.com, for $110 million. Several years later, she got the entrepreneurial itch once again: she founded Minted.com, an online stationery store that solicits designs from artists all ...
12.05.2019 Live From The HIBT Summit: Sara Blakely Of Spanx Our first episode from the 2019 How I Built This Summit features Sara Blakely, founder of Spanx. In front of a live audience, she tells Guy how she stayed confident in the earliest days of building the business, and why ...
12.02.2019 Live Episode! OtterBox: Curt Richardson In the 1980s and 90s, Curt Richardson started making simple plastic boxes in his garage in Fort Collins, Colorado. They were originally designed to keep small items dry while you're fishing or skiing, and Curt and his wife Nancy called ...
11.25.2019 Outdoor Voices: Tyler Haney In 2013, Tyler Haney was a 24-year-old graduate of the Parsons School of Design in New York. One day on a jog, she realized that her workout outfits looked, and felt, like they were made for competitive athletes. Tyler envisioned ...

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