Masters of Scale with Reid Hoffman

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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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Rapid Response: Surviving a...

05.06.2021

Harry's took a one-two punch in 2020 – right on the chin. First, the federal government blocked a $1.37 billion acquisition of the shaving and consumer products company; then Covid-19 lockdowns hit. Rather than reeling from the abrupt change in ...

Masters of Scale with Reid Hoffman episodes:

05.06.2021 Rapid Response: Surviving a close shave, with Harry's co-CEO Andy Katz-Mayfield Harry's took a one-two punch in 2020 – right on the chin. First, the federal government blocked a $1.37 billion acquisition of the shaving and consumer products company; then Covid-19 lockdowns hit. Rather than reeling from the abrupt change in ...
05.04.2021 30. The elusive formula for great hiring, w/Workday's Aneel Bhusri Your first hires are your cultural cofounders. And it’s worth your time to get every one right. That's why Workday CEO Aneel Bhusri personally interviewed his first 500 employees. Today, with 12,500 employees and over $4b in annual revenue, Workday ...
04.29.2021 Rapid Response: "A crucible moment for Instacart," with founder & CEO Apoorva Mehta Five years of growth in five weeks. That's how Covid-19 lockdowns accelerated Instacart's business last spring. Now, a year later, the company faces another "crucible moment," says Instacart CEO Apoorva Mehta. He's leaning into what he describes as a four-sided ...
04.27.2021 A Strategy Session w/A-Rod + Reid: Build a team of mentors To win at scale, you need more than great players – you need a team of great coaches. This Strategy Session episode is full of great advice and tactics for building that deep bench of mentors, each with a role ...
04.22.2021 Rapid Response: A pandemic is not a business model, w/Blue Apron's Linda Findley Kozlowski With the pandemic, cooking at home got a renewed boost, and meal kit outfits saw a rise in demand. But a year in, the trend toward at-home dining now faces a new inflection point. We're talking with Linda Findley Kozlowski, ...
04.20.2021 87. Frustration is your friend, w/Houzz founder Adi Tatarko Frustration is an important signal: it indicates an opportunity, a problem to be solved. And if your solution also builds a community, you've unlocked a path to scale. Adi Tatarko founded the online home-design site Houzz with her husband as ...
04.15.2021 Rapid Response: Can bankruptcy save movie theaters? with Alamo Drafthouse CEO Shelli Taylor "It's 12 months of no meaningful revenue," says Alamo Drafthouse CEO Shelli Taylor. "And then last weekend was phenomenal." Taylor returns to the podcast to explain why the hip, culture-forward movie theater chain recently filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, ...
04.13.2021 Unfiltered with Reid & Bob: GameStop, SPACs, gov't stimulus, and vaccines "The future is sooner and stranger than you think," Reid Hoffman tells Rapid Response host Bob Safian in a frank, unfiltered conversation about the lessons of 2021 so far. "The rulebook will be changing month by month." The co-hosts dive ...
04.08.2021 Rapid Response: Delta CEO Ed Bastian: Turbulence, recovery, and risk With 75% of U.S. customers saying they'll soon be vaccinated, Delta is embracing a new phase, opening up middle seats as of May 1. CEO Ed Bastian bet at the start of the pandemic that focusing on consumer confidence and ...
04.05.2021 86. Beyond Meat's Ethan Brown: How to teach your customer As the founder and CEO of Beyond Meat, Ethan Brown has spent years navigating misconceptions about plant-based foods. But smart entrepreneurs listen instead of arguing. Only by obsessing over what customers say they want has Brown been able to create ...
04.01.2021 Rapid Response: The trampoline effect, w/ Morning Brew CEO Alex Lieberman Revenue for Morning Brew's booming email newsletter operation dried up when the pandemic hit, but its audience remained devoted. Morning Brew CEO Alex Lieberman, who started the business with co-founder Austin Rief as undergraduates at the University of Michigan, leaned ...
03.30.2021 85. Mark Cuban: What investors really look for No one knows the fundraising game better than Mark Cuban, serial entrepreneur, investor, and star of Shark Tank. For founders, identifying the right source of capital, under the right terms, can provide a thermal updraft. But as Cuban explains, there ...
03.25.2021 Rapid Response: The business of democracy, w/Leadership Now's Daniella Ballou-Aares In recent months, business leaders have been pressed to take public positions on politics in ways they never have before. That's good for business and good for democracy, says Daniella Ballou-Aares, co-founder and CEO of the Leadership Now Project. She ...
03.23.2021 84. Disney’s Bob Iger: How acquisitions become an ecosystem, part 2 From Pixar to Marvel to Lucasfilm, Disney's Bob Iger defied expectations, acquiring world-renowned brands and meshing them seamlessly with the House of Mouse. In Part 2 of our epic conversation with Iger – Disney's executive chair and former CEO – ...
03.16.2021 Airbnb's Brian Chesky: "We died and were reborn." A special Rapid Response Headlines last April predicted death for Airbnb. How could it survive a pandemic that stopped their core business cold? As the business cratered (in 8 weeks, they lost 80% of revenue), CEO Brian Chesky realized: It was a moment to ...
03.09.2021 83. Tyra Banks: Personal brand power To succeed in the modern business environment, you need to strut your stuff: to cultivate a personal brand that supports career growth. No one represents this better than Tyra Banks. As a model, a producer, and an entrepreneur, Tyra has ...
03.04.2021 Rapid Response: A prescription for healthy growth, with FIGS Co-CEO Heather Hasson How does a start-up geared to healthcare workers balance giving back during Covid with the desire for growth? FIGS, an emerging lifestyle brand for medical professionals that built its name around premium scrubs, faced key choices amid the pandemic. Co-founder ...
03.02.2021 82. Disney’s Bob Iger: How acquisitions become an ecosystem, part 1 For any distinctive brand or business, it can be a challenge to expand reach without diluting what makes you special. No one has a keener understanding of this issue than Bob Iger, executive chair and former CEO of the Walt ...
02.25.2021 Nike’s CEO John Donahoe on wartime leadership (Rapid Response) When he became CEO on the eve of the pandemic, Nike's John Donahoe starting game plan revolved around listening and being out in the marketplace. But when lockdowns began rolling through, he quickly adjusted, assuming what he calls a "wartime" ...
02.23.2021 81. Virgin’s Sir Richard Branson: The secret to big leaps Successful daredevils aren't really winging it, even if it looks that way from the outside. They have a method. No one knows this better – or does this better – than Sir Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group. Sir ...
02.19.2021 A taste of Masters of Scale Season 8 Our all-new season of Masters of Scale features iconic leaders and rising stars of scale companies. This season, Reid Hoffman trades theories with Disney CEO Bob Iger, model/mogul Tyra Banks, investor Mark Cuban, Houzz founder Adi Tatarko, Beyond Meat founder ...
02.18.2021 Rapid Response: Winning and losing, w/Vanderbilt University coach Jerry Stackhouse Maintaining high performance in business has become harder than ever, between health challenges, economic obstacles, and political uncertainty. But we all still work to win. Jerry Stackhouse, coach of the Vanderbilt University men’s basketball team and former NBA all-star, is ...
02.16.2021 Rapid Response: Public-private opportunities, with Defense Innovation Unit's Mike Brown Call him the unofficial U.S. ambassador to Silicon Valley. As director of the Defense Innovation Unit within the U.S. Department of Defense, Mike Brown is tasked with bridging the gap between technology innovators and the U.S. government. Formerly CEO of ...
02.11.2021 Rapid Response: Iterating under pressure, with Feeding America's Claire Babineaux-Fontenot The pandemic era has ushered in a new wave of food insecurity, with some 50 millions Americans hungry for food aid. How could Feeding America, a nationwide network of food banks, meet the moment? CEO Claire Babineaux-Fontenot describes the immense ...
02.09.2021 Strategy Session: 5 burning questions & their unexpected answers w/Reid Hoffman & Bob Safian How do you build expertise in new tech like quantum, crypto and AI? How much attention should you be paying to the stock market right now? How do you keep your company's culture fresh if you don't have an influx ...
02.04.2021 Rapid Response: Why we need to think again, w/Adam Grant As we grapple with pandemic-charged change in business and as a society, we’ve become more fractured, more divisive, and more vulnerable. Adam Grant, best-selling author and professor at the Wharton School, argues that recognizing what we don't know is the ...
02.02.2021 80. How to be the steward of your idea, w/Affectiva's Rana el Kaliouby Great entrepreneurs aren't just product obsessed; they're impact obsessed. Rana el Kaliouby, co-founder and CEO of Affectiva, has spent most of her career thinking about how to project – and steward – the possible uses of artificial intelligence. Affectiva uses ...
01.28.2021 Rapid Response: Aggressive sustainability, w/Lynn Jurich, CEO of Sunrun Expectations for solar are high under a Biden administration, says Lynn Jurich, CEO of the solar power company Sunrun. While Sunrun's stock price has quadrupled in the past year, Jurich faces not only high-profile competition but the complexities of a ...
01.26.2021 79. How to master your emotions, w/Sam Harris The biggest challenge for founders often isn’t winning the strategic game – it’s winning the mental game. For a master class in mastering your emotions, we turn to Sam Harris, author, neuroscientist, and philosopher. His podcast “Making Sense,” his app ...
01.21.2021 Rapid Response: Ten months of pain and hope, w/restaurateur Danny Meyer It's been an epic journey for iconic New York City restaurateur and Shake Shack founder Danny Meyer. Forced by the pandemic into closures and layoffs last spring, as he poignantly shared in two previous episodes, Danny stayed optimistic and was ...
01.19.2021 6. Innovation is managed chaos, w/Eric Schmidt of Google/Alphabet Google has succeeded by innovating again and again. Their secret? They don’t tell their employees how to innovate; they manage the chaos. Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google since 2001 and now chair of parent company Alphabet, shares the controversial ...
01.14.2021 Rapid Response: What the pandemic has cost women, w/Ellevest's Sallie Krawcheck Amidst the devastating effects of the pandemic, one in five women has left the workforce, and the gender pay gap and wealth gap are expanding. There's a long-term cost to that inequity, says Sallie Krawcheck, co-founder and CEO of Ellevest, ...
01.12.2021 54. 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 ...
01.07.2021 8 reliable lessons for unreliable times If 2021 is even half as unpredictable as 2020 was, you'll need to dig deep into your resilience and wisdom to get through. We've pulled together this special episode of Masters of Scale to serve as a sort of primer ...
12.22.2020 2020: The Year in Review w/Reid Hoffman & Bob Safian Our host, Reid Hoffman, and our editor at large, Bob Safian, in conversation about a pandemic-disrupted year filled with unexpected twists and lessons. From the rise (and risks) of remote work to accelerations in tech; from supply-chain disruption to opportunities ...
12.17.2020 Rapid Response: Why Salesforce bought Slack, w/Salesforce's Bret Taylor Salesforce's much-buzzed-about deal to acquire Slack for $28 billion goes back a decade, when Friendfeed founder Bret Taylor met Flickr founder Stewart Butterfield. Now Taylor is Salesforce's president, while Butterfield runs Slack. In this episode, Taylor talks about how the ...
12.15.2020 57. Be a platform, w/Shopify's Tobi Lütke 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 ...
12.10.2020 Rapid Response: Why take on a turnaround, w/Magic Leap’s Peggy Johnson Why leave a storied tech icon to lead a troubled brand? As the pandemic deepened this summer, Peggy Johnson left a safe perch at Microsoft to take the helm of one-time startup darling Magic Leap, which had just barely avoided ...
12.08.2020 78. The secret power of onboarding, w/Canva's Melanie Perkins Onboarding isn't just about employees. The often overlooked step-by-step process – to join a product or company – lays the foundation for everything that follows. No one knows this better than Melanie Perkins, co-founder and CEO of Canva. From the ...
12.03.2020 Rapid Response: Loneliness at work, w/Noreena Hertz This is the loneliest century, says economist Noreena Hertz. Even before the pandemic forced us to stay home, loneliness was snaking its way through our lives, affecting everything from how we vote to how we work. Professor at University College ...
12.01.2020 77. Building bridges to scale, w/Kind’s Daniel Lubetzky Scaling isn’t only about scaling UP – it’s about scaling OUT: to new products, new verticals, new customers. And to do this, you’ll need to build bridges. No one knows this better than Daniel Lubetzky, the founder and executive chair ...
11.25.2020 Rapid Response: Balancing Data with Gut Feeling, w/JetBlue's Joanna Geraghty After suffering record shattering drops in revenue from Covid-19, JetBlue has had to rethink every plan and every assumption. Joanna Geraghty, JetBlue's president and chief operating officer, explains how the airline built a new system for flexing the business, to ...
11.24.2020 3. Learn from every “no,” w/Walker & Company’s Tristan Walker The best business ideas often seem laughable at first glance. So if you’re hearing a chorus of “no’s” – it may actually be a good sign. Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Airbnb – they all sounded crazy before they scaled spectacularly. So ...
11.19.2020 Rapid Response: Why brands must take a stand, w/Wieden+Kennedy's Colleen DeCourcy Legendary ad agency Wieden+Kennedy pioneered some of the most successful campaigns in history. But 2020 has raised the stakes for companies—and fundamentally changed how advertising works, W+K president Colleen DeCourcy tells us. Even as her own business adapts to financial ...
11.17.2020 76. How to find hidden value that others miss, w/The Black List's Franklin Leonard Forget looking for a needle in a haystack – instead, build a new type of metal detector, to find undervalued assets that others don’t see. That’s exactly what Franklin Leonard did when he started The Black List, an annual survey ...
11.12.2020 Rapid Response: A virtual-first workplace, w/Dropbox's Drew Houston In-office engagement or remote flexibility? We don't need to choose, says Dropbox co-founder and CEO Drew Houston. Facing the biggest shift in work habits in half a century, Houston has embarked on a radical experiment to reimagine how work gets ...
11.10.2020 75. Nike’s Phil Knight: How to sell without selling Great branding is about identity – and it’s about matchmaking too. No one knows this better than the legendary co-founder of Nike, Phil Knight. When he and his partner, Hall of Fame track coach Bill Bowerman, started the sneaker company, ...
11.05.2020 Rapid Response: Pandemic Planning, Phase Two, w/Dr. Bon Ku (Jefferson University Hospital) With Covid-19 cases surging, businesses may be forced into a new wave of adjustments. Will the crisis-management tactics of spring and summer be successful as winter unfolds? Dr. Bon Ku, an ER physician at Jefferson University Hospital and director of ...
11.02.2020 Rapid Response: Small business – more stressed than ever, w/H&R Block's Jeff Jones Small business is being taxed emotionally as well as financially, and that tax is rising, says H&R Block CEO Jeff Jones. As the pandemic hit, entrepreneurs did what entrepreneurs do: solved problems, protected teams, served customers. But as uncertainty has ...
10.27.2020 16. Build a more human internet, w/Caterina Fake Internet pioneer Caterina Fake knows: Online communities are built one human connection at a time. As the founder, you need to establish guidelines and norms from Day One – because the tone you set is the tone you’re going to ...

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