Wisdom From The Top with Guy Raz

By NPR

Society & Culture Technology Business Careers

What's Wisdom From The Top with Guy Raz about?

From the creator of How I Built This, host Guy Raz invites you to listen in as he talks to leadership experts and the visionary leaders of some of the world's biggest brands. Along the way, you'll hear accounts of crisis, failure, turnaround, and triumph, as the leaders reveal their secrets on their way to the top. These are stories that didn't make it into their company bios, and valuable lessons for anyone trying to make it in business.

Download our free app to listen on your phone

LAST EPISODE

Docusign: Keith Krach

03.29.2023

When Keith Krach first heard of Docusign, he knew it could be huge. He was convinced it would capture one of the biggest markets ever seen. He also knew exactly the play he needed to run to get it there, ...

Wisdom From The Top with Guy Raz episodes:

03.29.2023 Docusign: Keith Krach When Keith Krach first heard of Docusign, he knew it could be huge. He was convinced it would capture one of the biggest markets ever seen. He also knew exactly the play he needed to run to get it there, ...
03.22.2023 Zenefits: Jay Fulcher Why growth isn't always good, and how to infuse integrity into a toxic company culture. Zenefits was on its way to a multi-billion dollar valuation but, behind the scenes, it was all about to come crashing down. When Jay Fulcher ...
03.15.2023 Harvard Business School: Bill George, author of 'True North' When Bill George was a kid, he didn't dream of becoming a pro-athlete or an astronaut or a famous musician. Instead, he imagined the Fortune 500 companies he would lead as CEO. He achieved the dream when he took a ...
03.08.2023 H&R Block: Jeff Jones Jeff Jones is no stranger to crisis. From the 2013 Target data breach to a tumultuous period at Uber, he's helped navigate companies out of some tough situations. So, when Jeff became the President and CEO of H&R Block in ...
03.01.2023 Qualcomm: Steve Mollenkopf Steve Mollenkopf started working as an engineer at Qualcomm right out of college. After ascending to the top of the Engineering division, Mollenkopf thought that he'd reached his peak promotion in the company — that is, until he became CEO ...
02.22.2023 Dave Ramsey Dave Ramsey learned about debt the hard way: he'd made money, lost money, and declared bankruptcy, all before his 30th birthday. How he went from selling books out of his trunk to becoming a best-selling author and financial advisor to ...
02.15.2023 Foot Locker: Ken Hicks When Ken Hicks became CEO of Foot Locker in 2009, the company didn't have a leg to stand on: the economy was in a recession, sales were down almost a billion dollars, and the brand was widely expected to collapse ...
02.08.2023 Basecamp: Jason Fried Jason Fried, the CEO and co-founder of Basecamp, doesn't want you to come to meetings. He insists that you work no more than 40 hours a week; 36 in the summer. He doesn't really want you coming to the office ...
02.01.2023 Graeter's (Ice Cream): Richard Graeter There are a few dirty little secrets about the way modern ice cream is made, but Graeter's ice cream is different. They use a process that's well over one hundred years old, even though that means the company has to ...
01.25.2023 GE: Beth Comstock Beth Comstock is comfortable with change. In college, she wanted to be a doctor, but organic chemistry wasn't her strong suit, so she shifted to journalism. When journalism didn't work out, she started working in publicity. So, when GE bought ...
01.18.2023 Macy's: Terry Lundgren Terry Lundgren, former CEO of Neiman Marcus and Macy's, has been instrumental in shaping the American retail landscape, but the road to bringing two notoriously competitive retail giants together wasn't easy. How he merged famous department rivals, double-downed on retail, ...
01.11.2023 Marvel: Peter Cuneo Today, Marvel is one of the most substantial forces in American media, but when Peter Cuneo joined the company as CEO in 1999, it was a struggling publishing house teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Ten years later, Disney bought ...
01.04.2023 Covey Leadership Center: Stephen M. R. Covey Back in the 1980s, Stephen R. Covey anticipated a new kind of leadership with his book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. It wasn't the table-pounding, charismatic kind of leadership, but an empathetic one, which prioritized listening and collaboration. ...
12.28.2022 Honeywell: David Cote When David Cote started working in manufacturing, he was a self-described "wrench turner, the lowest on the totem pole." He worked his way up through the ranks of GE, and was eventually offered the helm of mega conglomerate Honeywell. At ...
12.21.2022 Sonic: Cliff Hudson Cliff Hudson's childhood was marked by instability. At a young age, he watched his family struggle to recover after his father's roofing business collapsed. So, after college, he was determined to find a safe and stable job. In 1984, Cliff ...
12.14.2022 Dunkin' Donuts: Bob Rosenberg In 1963, Bob Rosenberg became CEO of his father's company, Dunkin' Donuts, at age 25. About a decade later, after an overly-ambitious expansion put the company in jeopardy, the board almost threw him out. But Bob matured into his leadership ...
12.07.2022 Acumen: Jacqueline Novogratz When the COO of Chase Bank told Jacqueline Novogratz that she had the potential for a high level career at Chase, she knew she had to quit her job. She continued to use the skills she learned from investment banking ...
11.30.2022 PayPal: Dan Schulman Mixing business and social justice isn't a strategy most companies are willing to adopt, which is why Dan Schulman's actions as CEO of PayPal have garnered so much attention. In 2016, he canceled a plan for an operations center in ...
11.23.2022 Perdue Farms: Jim Perdue Jim Perdue wasn't that interested in becoming a third-generation head of the family meat processing business. Still, he became CEO in 1991 and his leadership turned out to be pivotal for building Perdue Farms into a nationwide brand. How Perdue ...
11.16.2022 Gensler: Diane Hoskins For as long as Diane Hoskins can remember, she wanted to be an architect. It began with Legos as a child, and eventually led her all the way to architecture giant, Gensler— an unusual company with two CEOs. One CEO ...
11.09.2022 Continental Airlines: Gordon Bethune Gordon Bethune took an unlikely path to becoming a leader in the airline industry. A self-described "hoodlum," Bethune dropped out of high school, joined the Navy, and became an airplane mechanic. With that experience, he gave Continental Airlines a tune-up, ...
11.02.2022 Etsy: Josh Silverman Josh Silverman built Evite and turned around eBay. Then, in 2017, Etsy came calling. The online marketplace for creative goods was in deep trouble. Growth had plateaued and the company was on the verge of being sold. Josh stepped in ...
10.26.2022 Cisco Systems: John Chambers Cisco was growing at breakneck speed when the tech bubble burst in 2001. As an industry veteran, CEO John Chambers knew firsthand that no company was immune to failure. Anticipating the need to transition, and using a '100 year flood' ...
10.20.2022 Tiny Habits: BJ Fogg What does it take for a person to change? BJ Fogg, founder of Stanford's Behavior Design Lab, says the key to behavior change isn't what we've always been taught. In Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything, Fogg draws ...
10.12.2022 United Talent Agency: Jeremy Zimmer Jeremy Zimmer was not supposed to be heading one of the "big four" talent agencies in Hollywood. As a child he struggled in school and eventually dropped out of college to become a parking lot hustler, making money running schemes ...
10.05.2022 HHS: Sylvia Mathews Burwell When Sylvia Mathews Burwell was appointed Secretary of HHS in 2014, Health and Human Services — the agency responsible for administering Obamacare — was already under intense scrutiny. And the crises just kept coming: a government shutdown, unaccompanied minors at ...
09.28.2022 Effortless: Greg McKeown Leadership strategist and business speaker Greg McKeown is the author of two New York Times-bestselling books: Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less and Effortless: Make It Easier To Do What Matters Most. The core of McKeown's philosophy of "Essentialism" is ...
09.21.2022 Gates Foundation: Melinda Gates Running the world's wealthiest charitable foundation is all about tough choices. During her meteoric rise at Microsoft, Melinda Gates never guessed she'd spend decades trying to solve global problems. Learning to give by asking the right questions and accepting the ...
09.14.2022 The Rise: Sarah Lewis Dr. Sarah Elizabeth Lewis is Associate Professor of History of Art and Architecture and of African and African American Studies at Harvard. Early in her career, she became fascinated with what she calls "back-turned paintings"--the paintings which artists keep turned ...
09.07.2022 Intuit: Brad Smith Why isn't Intuit dead? The key was transforming it into a "36 year old start up," says former CEO Brad Smith. Giving people the chance to make an impact, he says, is vital to energizing a workforce. How he lost ...
08.31.2022 College Board: David Coleman In this special live episode, how David Coleman leveraged criticism to revamp the SAT, revive the College Board, and introduce new ways to battle education inequality. The ACT was fast becoming the college entrance heavyweight when he came in to ...
08.24.2022 Unapologetically Ambitious: Shellye Archambeau Shellye Archambeau knew as a teenager she wanted to grow up and become a CEO. But when Shellye started as an undergraduate at the Wharton School of Business in 1980, there were just two female CEOs of large corporations, and ...
08.17.2022 Walgreens: Greg Wasson Greg Wasson was an aspiring pharmacist with dreams of building his own pharmacy, but before he'd even finished his degree, he found himself climbing the corporate ladder at Walgreens. Bigger opportunities at the company opened up, and he continued to ...
08.10.2022 Autodesk: Carl Bass Carl Bass, a renegade and reluctant executive, took the helm at Autodesk, and steered the company out of the global economic crisis. At one point, he was so sure it would fail that he was desperate to find a buyer. ...
08.03.2022 YUM! Brands: David Novak David Novak has been a driving force behind brands like Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, KFC, and he co-founded YUM! Brands Inc., one of the biggest players in the quick service restaurant industry. He's written bestsellers including Taking People With You, ...
07.27.2022 IBM: Lou Gerstner When Lou Gerstner became the CEO of IBM in 1993, he had never worked for a technology company, and IBM was in big trouble: competitors like Microsoft, Dell, and Compaq were eating up market share. Gerstner took the challenge head-on ...
07.20.2022 Silence: Erling Kagge Explorer, writer, and publisher Erling Kagge was the first person to complete the Three Poles Challenge ⁠— reaching the South Pole, the North Pole, and the top of Mt. Everest ⁠— on foot. He talks about what a life of ...
07.13.2022 BET: Debra Lee Black Entertainment Television helped make the first Black billionaire in the US and was the first Black-owned business traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Debra Lee, a young lawyer drawn to the company's mission, was pivotal in turning the ...
07.06.2022 Yahoo: Marissa Mayer Yahoo had been churning through executives when Marissa Mayer became its 7th CEO in just over 5 years. She left a track record of success at Google to take on a floundering company faced with obsolescence. How she infused value ...
06.29.2022 The Empathy Edge: Maria Ross In 2016, Maria Ross realized that she was trying to teach her son that empathy was a way to success, when the world around them seemed to be sending the exact opposite message. So she took her years of experience ...
06.22.2022 Sprint: Dan Hesse Customers crave simplicity, Dan Hesse figured out early in his career, as he streamlined phone bills at Sprint. He saved 2 billion dollars, just by taking better care of customers in a few key ways. Plus, just how hard Sprint ...
06.15.2022 Tiny Habits: BJ Fogg What does it take for a person to change? BJ Fogg, founder of Stanford's Behavior Design Lab, says the key to behavior change isn't what we've always been taught. In Tiny Habits: The Small Changes that Change Everything Fogg draws ...
06.08.2022 General David Petraeus General David Petraeus took on a uniquely complex leadership challenge in Iraq in the aftermath of the U.S.-led war there. He oversaw the training of a new and entirely Iraqi army. He says that the key to leadership is first ...
06.01.2022 Carnival Corporation: Arnold Donald How a New Orleans native turned around a cruise company sinking from a public relations disaster... to one of the most valuable brands in its industry. When Arnold Donald took over Carnival Corporation and the nine cruise lines it operates, ...
05.25.2022 Capital One: Sanjiv Yajnik Sanjiv Yajnik is no stranger to taking risks and adapting to change. In fact, he was a marine engineer for more than a decade before deciding to move from India to Canada to pursue an MBA. Since leaving the open ...
05.18.2022 GAP: Mickey Drexler When Gap was failing, Mickey Drexler didn't just increase sales. He made it into a pop culture staple of the 80s and 90s. But that wasn't enough to keep him from getting fired. At his next job, he was not ...
05.11.2022 When More Is Not Better: Roger Martin Over a career spanning four decades, Roger Martin has been a management consultant, an influential business strategy thinker and author, as well as the Dean of the Rotman School of Management at University of Toronto. He advises CEOs of global ...
05.04.2022 Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen: Cheryl Bachelder Cheryl Bachelder decided to go into business after an early setback derailed her potential career in music education. She became President of KFC years later, but a job that started as a major opportunity wound up being a massive failure. ...
04.27.2022 American Humane: Robin Ganzert When Robin Ganzert joined American Humane as it's new president and CEO, she thought she was helming one of the oldest and best known animal welfare organizations in the US. What she didn't know was that American Humane was $12.2 ...
04.20.2022 Avon: Andrea Jung For over a decade as CEO of direct-sales giant Avon, Andrea Jung was one of the most powerful women in the cosmetics industry. During her tenure, Jung saw striking success, but also faced daunting challenges with a failed product rollout ...

Older episodes