Wisdom From The Top with Guy Raz

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 and led the company through some of its highest and lowest moments.

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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 millions.

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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 along with indoor shopping malls themselves. How Hicks used a commitment to better storytelling to help Foot Locker get back on the right foot.

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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 either... and this approach has helped make Basecamp hugely successful. In this episode, Fried describes how he's built an institution by bucking a lot of conventional wisdom.

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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 stay small. Richard Graeter is part of the fourth generation to run this family company, and he wouldn't have it any other way.

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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 NBC in 1986 right as Beth was starting her career in advertising, she was ready to adapt again. She worked her way to becoming CMO of GE and then, the company's first female Vice Chair of Business Innovations.

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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, and turned Macy's into the first nationwide department store in the United States.

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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 Marvel for $4.5 billion. Cuneo tells his unlikely origin story and how he became the "turnaround superhero."

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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. Guy speaks with Covey's son, Stephen M.R. Covey, who has played a central role in spreading his father's teachings around the world, and has also written several influential leadership books of his own.

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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 the time, Honeywell was losing employees, struggling with mounting debt, and facing major environmental liability suits. Inspired by the ultra-efficient operational structure of Japanese companies like Toyota, Cote righted Honeywell in what has been called one of the most historic turnarounds in manufacturing history.

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