Masters of Scale with Reid Hoffman

By WaitWhat

Business

What's Masters of Scale with Reid Hoffman about?

How do companies grow from zero to a gazillion? Legendary Silicon Valley investor / entrepreneur Reid Hoffman tests his theories with famous founders. Guests include Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg & Sheryl Sandberg, Netflix’s Reed Hastings, Google’s Eric Schmidt, Spanx's Sara Blakely. With original music and hilariously honest stories, the show sounds like nothing you’ve ever heard. Masters of Scale is a WaitWhat original series in association with Stitcher.

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Strategy Session: How trans...

07.14.2020

How do you take smart risks, how can you be transparent – but inspiring – with your board and your team, how do you keep up morale in what seem like the darkest days, and what does the future of ...

Masters of Scale with Reid Hoffman episodes:

07.14.2020 Strategy Session: How transparent should you be with your board? How do you boost morale in dark days? Is it time to blitzscale? How do you take smart risks, how can you be transparent – but inspiring – with your board and your team, how do you keep up morale in what seem like the darkest days, and what does the future of ...
07.11.2020 Special: Inside PayPal's $530M plan to close the racial wealth gap, with CEO Dan Schulman The pandemic has hurt many businesses – but PayPal isn't one of them. PayPal has boomed as e-commerce has swelled, with stock up more than 50% this year and a huge new demographic joining the platform. That doesn't mean, though, ...
07.09.2020 Special: What it will take for tech and Hollywood to be anti-racist, w/Color Of Change's Rashad Robinson There's no quick fix to 400 years of oppression, says Color Of Change president Rashad Robinson. One of the largest racial justice organizations in the US, Color Of Change works with decision-makers in business and government to enact systemic change. ...
07.07.2020 4 core principles of crisis management, w/Ellen Kullman (DuPont, Carbon) To survive a crisis, you have to double down on who you already are as a company. This is something Ellen Kullman knows, having led DuPont through the 2008-2009 financial crisis, and taken the CEO role at 3D-printing unicorn Carbon ...
07.02.2020 Special: A new playbook for new times, w/ Ford Foundation president Darren Walker "This was like 1918, 1929 and 1968 in one week," says Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation. With the pandemic, economic crisis, and civil unrest all coming together after George Floyd's death, Walker found himself flooded with calls from ...
06.30.2020 Stephen Colbert + DonorsChoose's Charles Best — The power of small goals Startups are audacious. They’re big. They’re world-changing. But you can’t achieve scale on day one. Sometimes the best way to achieve that monumental success tomorrow is to take a teeny tiny step today. This is what Charles Best did when ...
06.27.2020 Special: Burning cash, accepting turbulence w/Delta CEO Ed Bastian A surprisingly candid and upbeat interview on the industry hardest hit by the pandemic. Delta saw seat bookings fall to less than 5% of normal, had 40,000 employees go on unpaid leave, and raised $14 billion in funding – all ...
06.23.2020 Liberating the human spirit, w/Robert F. Smith (Vista Equity, Morehouse Commencement), Recorded live at Summit LA 2019 Every great founder has a second purpose — something outside their main business they're trying to get done in the world. And every successful company is like a Trojan Horse, carrying this second purpose forward. No one knows this better ...
06.19.2020 Special: How business can engage against racism, w/Shellye Archambeau (MetricStream, Nordstrom, Verizon) What can your business do right now in the struggle against racism? More than you think, says Shellye Archambeau, former CEO of MetricStream, now a board member at Verizon, Nordstrom and Okta. She returns to the show with her all-too-rare ...
06.16.2020 Test. Measure. Repeat. — w/Eric Ries (Lean Startup; Long-Term Stock Exchange) Forget writing that business plan. Design an experiment instead. So many products and companies fail because the assumptions in their beautiful business plans were just wrong. So stop writing and start testing. No one knows this better than Eric Ries, ...
06.13.2020 Special: GM's Mary Barra: "Going ventilator fast" GM is now reopening auto plants, after shutting them in March, temporarily reducing pay for 69,000 employees, and making a fast pivot to produce masks and ventilators. But with the killing of George Floyd, things are hardly back to normal. ...
06.09.2020 Strategy Session: The Post-Pandemic Business How do you
06.06.2020 Special: BuzzFeed’s Jonah Peretti: Record-high audience, record-low revenue BuzzFeed audience is at record highs. But the pandemic's economic effects have crushed the bottom line. BuzzFeed co-founder and CEO Jonah Peretti shares how his company is making hard decisions to build long-term stability. “But the transition is painful,” he ...
06.03.2020 Reid’s 2020 Commencement Speech: In a crisis, steer toward the emerging opportunities New graduates
05.30.2020 Special: Danny Meyer, 10 wks later: How to revive restaurants "Being the first to close is one thing. But I don't want to be the last to open,” says iconic restaurateur Danny Meyer in his second Rapid Response interview. After shutting his iconic New York City restaurants, laying off 2,000 ...
05.28.2020 Special: How "startup DNA" helped One Medical respond to Covid, with CEO Amir Rubin Since One Medical’s IPO in January, CEO Amir Rubin has been forced to constantly adapt to the coronavirus pandemic, as healthcare needs, expectations, and behaviors shifted. From telemedicine to Covid-19 testing, One Medical has leaned into existing advantages to scale ...
05.26.2020 Duolingo’s Luis von Ahn — A masterclass in crowdsourcing Crowdsourcing is more than a group of people interested in the same cause, it’s a way to tap skills – and scale – that you don’t have. And when it works, it can be the rocket fuel that launches you ...
05.23.2020 Special: How Warby Parker is making decisions in uncertainty, with CEO Neil Blumenthal "It's like getting hit in the face over and over and over,” says Warby Parker co-CEO Neil Blumenthal. But “crisis brings out clarity.” At Warby, planning for the future has meant leaning into the present — from physical changes in ...
05.19.2020 Part 2: Apple’s Angela Ahrendts — How to unite a team In Part 2, Angela arrives at Apple, which feels like another planet after her years in fashion. In never-before heard stories, Angela shares how she learned the language of tech (the physical store is the ‘hardware’; the experience inside the ...
05.16.2020 Special: Future-proofing Verizon, with CEO Hans Vestberg Data streaming, videoconferencing – even phone calls are way up at Verizon amid Covid-19, as digital interaction steps in for IRL. But boom times don't mean easy times for CEO Hans Vestberg, who moved over 100,000 employees remote in two ...
05.12.2020 Season 6! Apple’s Angela Ahrendts: How to unite a team The Apple logo. The iconic Burberry check. These images inspire loyalty of customers and employees alike. But it takes more than a beloved brand to power a company and motivate a team. No one knows this better than Angela Ahrendts, ...
05.09.2020 Special: Operating in a fishbowl w/Philly 76ers & NJ Devils CEO Scott O’Neil In sports, everyone has an opinion on every hire, every trade, every price change. That’s the reality – and also the privilege, says Scott O'Neil, CEO of the Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Devils. When the NBA dramatically shut down ...
05.07.2020 Special: Crisis lessons from inside the ER, with Dr. Bon Ku In the Covid-19 storm, treating hospital patients requires constant iteration, creative information-sharing, and worst-case-scenario planning. Dr. Bon Ku, an ER physician and director of the Health Design Lab at Jefferson University in Philadelphia, takes us inside the practice and mindset ...
05.05.2020 Special: Food security in a pandemic, w/Sara Menker of Gro Intelligence Will the U.S. run out of food? Can the world's food supply chains survive coronavirus? Sara Menker, founder and CEO of Gro Intelligence, which parses 650 trillion agricultural data points daily, shares eye-opening insights based on real-time facts. Learn about ...
04.30.2020 Special: Inside Panera’s pandemic pivot, with CEO Niren Chaudhary What do you do when you can’t serve customers in cafes and carry on business as usual? You try unusual things, says Panera CEO Niren Chaudhary. Forced to close cafes and restructure teams, Panera is leveraging its advantages (like a ...
04.28.2020 Special: A crisis leadership session with General Stanley McChrystal Everyone's looking for a box of crisis tricks. But the hard truth is that it simply doesn’t exist, says retired General Stanley McChrystal. Instead of looking for a new style, McChrystal says, lead with the same things that motivate people ...
04.25.2020 Special: Pet adoptions: Up. Delivery business: Up. What that means to Chewy’s Sumit Singh Pet adoptions have soared during the coronavirus lockdown, as people seek companionship and solace. For Chewy, the pet-supply company, that’s driving unprecedented demand. Ultra-rapid growth has its own set of challenges that CEO Sumit Singh is responding to by: hiring ...
04.23.2020 Special: Build government back – better, w/Jen Pahlka (Code for America, USDR) In the US, local governments are leading the response to COVID-19 – making decisions and gathering data at a speed and scale never before seen. And many of them are asking Jen Pahlka for help. The founder and past chair ...
04.20.2020 Special: Target’s Brian Cornell: “I want to see retail survive this” Every day in a pandemic is different, and that’s true for people and for corporations. CEO Brian Cornell has promised Target will keep its doors open. To do that, Target is becoming "a good student," says Brian, listening to experts, ...
04.18.2020 Special: TaskRabbit's Stacy Brown-Philpot: “A pandemic doesn’t see money.” TaskRabbit remains open for business, says CEO Stacy Brown-Philpot. As the magnitude and severity of the pandemic became clear – and as workers across the U.S. were furloughed and services cut – TaskRabbit leaned into the work they do: providing ...
04.16.2020 Special: Lyft’s John Zimmer: How to keep an essential business running Everything starts with transportation, says John Zimmer, co-founder and president of Lyft. And even though ride sharing is sharply down, transportation remains key – for essential workers and for our supply chain. So Lyft is flexing some new muscles, says ...
04.13.2020 Special: Airbnb’s Brian Chesky: "Crisis is pushing us back to our roots" As the pandemic hit, Airbnb was preparing for an IPO. Within a matter of days, everything changed dramatically, as travel worldwide screamed to a halt. “I felt like I was captain of a ship and a torpedo hit the side,” ...
04.07.2020 Special: Fast pivots for changing needs w/DonorsChoose Charles Best People are altruistic – even more so in times of uncertainty. This is what Charles Best, founder and CEO of DonorsChoose, has learned through 20 years of leading his nonprofit through the terrorist attacks of 9/11, multiple recessions, and now ...
04.04.2020 Special: Relief funding & crowdfunding in a crisis w/Karen Cahn of IFundWomen What are your options for emergency funding in the US? Can you use the U.S. CARES Act to get financial assistance? Should you consider crowdfunding? We talk to Karen Cahn, CEO of IFundWomen, about what you need to know. Who ...
04.02.2020 Crisis data is the story of our times, says Crisis Text Line founder "Anxiety," "grief," "mom”: These are the words surfacing at this extreme moment in time. That data comes from Crisis Text Line, whose online counselors are using both empathy and aggregated data to help people through this pandemic. Founder and former ...
03.31.2020 Special: Hourly workers are a ‘hero class’ w/Cue Ball’s Tony Tjan Hourly workers are the 'hero class,' says VC Tony Tjan. And the pandemic is wreaking havoc on their financial stability. At Boston’s Cue Ball Group, Tony’s portfolio includes companies that employ hundreds of nail care workers, cooks and servers, and ...
03.26.2020 Special: First, be human – Thoughts on the crisis from Reid Hoffman Can you blitzscale when the world grinds to a halt? How do you do right by your team AND your investors? What will the entrepreneurial world look like on the other side of this? In this special episode, our host ...
03.24.2020 Special: Danny Meyer on the wrenching decision to do layoffs Last week, Danny Meyer laid off 2,000 people – that's 80 percent of staff at Union Square Hospitality Group, representing 20+ restaurants across the country. It was a heartbreaking decision made with full understanding of the impacts, short and long-term ...
03.18.2020 Special: Remote teams with WordPress/Automattic CEO Matt Mullenweg The first in a series of special episodes with tools you need RIGHT NOW \| Suddenly, many of us are remote workers. As companies radically reimagine their day-to-day in response to the pandemic, we all need to know what Matt ...
02.27.2020 How to start a revolution – Bitcoin pioneer Wences Casares (Xapo) What if your idea is so radical that people have trouble grasping what it is – or even believing it won't harm them? Every founder believes their product is revolutionary – and the more revolutionary their product, the more reassuring ...
02.20.2020 Strategy Session: When to replace the founder, how to be a learn-it-all, when to take the "venture bet" Growth vs innovation, scale vs stability, founders vs CEOs? Entrepreneurs want to know! We’re back with another Strategy Session episode, featuring fast-growing, high-performing scale-ups from around the world, and they’re asking Reid their biggest questions. They want to know: What ...
02.13.2020 Shopify's Tobi Lütke: Be a platform The secret to massive scale? Be a platform. Build a virtuous cycle where everyone wins, and you’ll emerge the biggest winner of all. This is what Tobi Lütke did when he built Shopify – and then opened it up to ...
02.06.2020 Netflix’s Reed Hastings: Why culture matters Classic episode: You need a strong culture to build a company that will scale beyond the early days of start up. And strong company cultures only emerge when every employee feels they own the culture from day one. Here's how ...
01.23.2020 When to Zoom In, When to Zoom Out, with Josh Silverman (Etsy / eBay / Skype / Evite) When do you see the forest? And when do you see the trees? Building a company to scale requires a delicate balance of macro and micro focus – and the skill to know where to focus when. Josh Silverman has ...
01.17.2020 Strategy Session: When not to blitzscale, how to persuade your board to let you slow down, and: Are you in a Glengarry Glen Ross market? When's the right time for hypergrowth? Should you take investment when you don’t need the money? How do you deal with an exhausted team? Global entrepreneurs facing hyperfast growth ask Reid their questions about raising capital, pivoting their product, bootstrapping ...
01.13.2020 Special: A Meditative Story from Reid Hoffman How do you find joy in your life? Our host, Reid Hoffman, finds it through friendship, and the genuine, honest, and intimate conversations it brings. In this special episode of Meditative Story, from the same producers as Masters of Scale, ...
01.09.2020 What’s the hidden business behind your business? w/Rent the Runway’s Jenn Hyman Rent the Runway co-founder Jenn Hyman knows: Behind every successful business is another business backstage, one you might not expect. Rent the Runway is known for creating a glamorous "closet in the cloud,” but as Hyman explains, it achieved unicorn ...
01.03.2020 How to find your big idea w/ Spanx's Sara Blakely To find your big idea? Look for it. And look for it. And be ready to act. Spanx founder Sara Blakely was actively seeking a business idea when she thought of Spanx. Then she moved fast, found help in the ...
12.26.2019 Master the art of storytelling w/charity: water's Scott Harrison You need a great story to build a great company. And great stories are unwaveringly TRUE. No one embodies this principle more fully than Scott Harrison, founder of Charity: Water. A master storyteller, Scott built his nonprofit on 3 radical ...
12.20.2019 Bill Gates — The biggest success story you haven't heard In part two of this special two-part episode with Bill Gates, we’re talking about the biggest success story ever told on the podcast – and not just for Bill Gates, but for humanity. And it was achieved not through Microsoft, ...

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