Brian Armstrong wanted to be a tech entrepreneur since he was in high school, but his first serious venture—a tutoring website—never quite took off. Around 2010, while looking to get a job in Silicon Valley, he stumbled across an intriguing idea for a peer-to-peer digital currency called Bitcoin, which quickly turned into his obsession. Brian's initial prototype for a hosted Bitcoin wallet got him accepted into the prestigious Y Combinator program, and he launched Coinbase soon thereafter. Many ...
Nov 15, 2021•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 379
In 2009, Berkeley seniors Nikhil Arora and Alejandro Velez started to geek out over something they'd heard in a lecture: you can grow a healthy crop of mushrooms on used coffee grounds. Intrigued by the business potential, the pair set aside jobs in finance and consulting and became urban farmers: salvaging leaky bags of coffee grounds, planting mushroom spawn in an Oakland warehouse, and selling their crop to local grocers. Over time, the partners realized they could help others grow food for t...
Nov 08, 2021•1 hr 19 min•Ep. 378
Before mp3 players came along in the mid 1990's, listening to audiobooks was a pain. The number of titles was tiny, narration was dull, and if you wanted to listen on the go, you had to juggle a bunch of clunky cassettes. Don Katz faced these frustrations every day while jogging. He was an accomplished writer who thought there was something special and intimate about hearing an author's words spoken aloud. He wondered: what if audiobooks could be purchased online and downloaded onto a dedicated ...
Nov 01, 2021•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 377
For Christina Tosi, baking wasn't just a delicious childhood hobby—it was a daily creative outlet and a way to blow off steam. After college, she went to culinary school and honed her pastry technique at high-end restaurants in NYC. But she also craved the opportunity to make unfussy, nostalgic desserts like the ones she grew up eating. So in 2008, Christina opened her first Milk Bar bakery in the East Village, with the help of her mentor, Momofuku chef David Chang. Soon, people from around the ...
Oct 25, 2021•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 376
As an avid athlete and college basketball player, Missy Park was lucky to grow up during the early era of Title IX, the 1972 law that created new opportunities for young women to play sports. But in the years before Lululemon and Athleta, activewear for women was either ill-fitting or non-existent. So in 1989—with little experience in apparel or retail—Missy decided to launch a female version of Nike. She sent out a mail order catalog of running shorts, tights, and (at the last minute) sports br...
Oct 18, 2021•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 375
In the field of bio-tech, it can take 10 years and millions of dollars to see if an experimental idea might turn into a life-saving treatment—if it ever does. Noubar Afeyan fully understood those risks when he co-founded Moderna in 2010. He and his colleagues were looking for a way to deploy the messenger RNA molecule to tackle life-threatening diseases. In January of 2020, an urgent opportunity presented itself in the form of a deadly virus that was spreading across the globe. At a breathtaking...
Oct 11, 2021•1 hr 6 min•Ep. 374
While traveling abroad with her husband in 2016, Fawn Weaver became fixated on a New York Times article telling the little-known story of Nearest Green, a formerly enslaved man who taught Jack Daniel—yes, that Jack Daniel—how to make Tennessee whiskey. After diving deeper into the story, Fawn ended up purchasing the 300-acre farm in Lynchburg, Tennessee where Nearest had taught Jack how to distill; and she began meeting the descendants of both men. She initially thought of honoring Nearest's sto...
Oct 04, 2021•1 hr 16 min•Ep. 373
Paul English is a perpetual founder. Since high school, he's started 3 philanthropies and 8 companies—ranging from e-commerce, to gaming, to GetHuman, a site that helps users access human customer support. His best-known venture is probably KAYAK, a travel website launched in 2004 over two gin-and-tonics with co-founder Steve Hafner. Using a simple interface, KAYAK specialized in search; and it made partners out of potential rivals like Orbitz and Expedia by charging them a fee to send users to ...
Sep 27, 2021•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 372
As Texas A&M students in the mid 2000's, Cory Cotton, Tyler Toney and their housemates spent countless hours playing hockey in the living room and attempting trick shots in the backyard. A spontaneous bet over a sandwich led the guys to make a video montage of outrageous basketball shots, which they titled Dude Perfect and posted on a new site called YouTube. After that first video wound up on Good Morning America, the five Dudes challenged themselves to even more outrageous stunts: an impos...
Sep 20, 2021•1 hr 29 min•Ep. 371
After more than 20 years working in the shoe business, Wayne Edy decided to strike out on his own, risking most of his savings to launch his own brand. Knowing he was entering a crowded field, he focused on a niche sport—trail running—and developed a lightweight shoe with a rubber-cleat sole, well-suited to the terrain near his home in England's Lake District. The unusual design raised eyebrows at first, but after inov-8's launch in 2003, the shoe quickly grew a following among elite trail-runne...
Sep 13, 2021•59 min•Ep. 370
After falling in love with the first Apple Mac computer in 1984, Lynda Weinman found a new career: using the new technology to teach web graphics. She published a best-selling book on the topic, and then—along with her husband Bruce Heavin—decided to host a web design workshop in the small town of Ojai, California. When the class sold out, the partners realized their straightforward approach to digital design was in high demand. Despite having no business background, Lynda and Bruce continued to...
Sep 06, 2021•1 hr 14 min•Ep. 369
In the late 1980s, a New Zealand engineer named Keith Alexander wanted to buy a trampoline for his kids. After his wife said they were too dangerous, Keith set out to design his own—a safer trampoline, without metal springs. He tinkered with and perfected the design over the course of a decade. But he was daunted by the challenge of bringing his invention to market; and he almost gave up. At that point Steve Holmes, a Canadian businessman, bought the patent to Keith's trampoline, and took a big ...
Aug 30, 2021•56 min•Ep. 368
We have our final main stage event from the 2021 How I Built This Virtual Summit, and it's Guy's conversation with Rashad Robinson, President of Color Of Change, the nation's largest leading racial justice organization. In this live interview, Rashad talks about finding strength and purpose through activism—an initiative that has no clear end. According to Rashad, activism does not have to center around sadness and tragedy; activism is about the power of the people, recognizing victories, celebr...
Aug 26, 2021•26 min•Ep. 367
In the 1970s, Roxanne Quimby was trying to live a simpler life – one that rejected the pursuit of material comforts. She moved to Maine, built a cabin in the woods, and lived off the grid. By the mid-80s, she met a recluse beekeeper named Burt Shavitz and offered to help him tend to his bees. As partners, Roxanne and Burt soon began selling their "Pure Maine Honey" at local markets, which evolved into candles made out of beeswax, and eventually lip balm and skin care products. Today, Burt's Bees...
Aug 23, 2021•50 min•Ep. 366
We have another episode from the 2021 How I Built This Virtual Summit, and it's Guy's interview with organizational psychology professor and author Adam Grant. He's known for his books Think Again , Give and Take and Originals . Adam is also the host of the podcast WorkLife . In this live conversation, Adam explains why entrepreneurs should take a scientific approach to decision-making and why admitting you're wrong goes a long way to learning what's right. We'll be releasing more episodes from ...
Aug 19, 2021•50 min•Ep. 365
In 2010, Logic the rapper—born as Sir Robert Bryson Hall II—released his first official mixtape titled "Young, Broke & Infamous." At 20 years old, Logic certainly was young and broke, and while crashing on a friend's couch, he poured himself into his music. Logic's career could have fizzled if it wasn't for Chris Zarou, a young college athlete-turned-manager who had no more experience in the music business than Logic. Undeterred, the two decided to work together, continuing to use free music...
Aug 16, 2021•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 364
We have another episode from the 2021 How I Built This Virtual Summit, and it's Guy's interview with professor, author, and host of the Unlocking Us podcast, Brené Brown. In this live conversation, Brené talks about how vulnerability is vital for good leadership, and how she sees gratitude as a driving force for improving office culture. We'll be releasing more episodes from the Summit throughout the month of August, so keep checking your podcast feed. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/pri...
Aug 12, 2021•32 min•Ep. 363
In the 1990's, Stacy Madison and her boyfriend Mark Andrus were selling pita sandwiches from a converted hot dog cart in Boston. They decided to bake the leftover pita into chips, adding a dash of parmesan or cinnamon-sugar. At first they handed them out for free, but soon discovered that people were happy to pay for them. So they eventually decided to leave the sandwich cart behind and launch Stacy's Pita Chips. They hoped the brand might grow into a modest regional business—but it kept growing...
Aug 09, 2021•57 min•Ep. 362
We have another episode from the 2021 How I Built This Virtual Summit, and it's Guy's interview with internet content guru Gary Vaynerchuk. In this live conversation, Gary talks about his innovative approaches to marketing and branding, and his belief that you can make money from pretty much anything online, as long as you're passionate about it, and put in the work. We'll be releasing more episodes from the Summit throughout the month of August, so keep checking your podcast feed. See Privacy P...
Aug 05, 2021•36 min•Ep. 361
Growing up in New Jersey in the 1980's and 90's, Gary Vaynerchuk honed his business skills trading baseball cards and selling wine at his dad's liquor store. He discovered the potential of Youtube early on and launched Wine Library TV, an unfiltered, in-your-face wine review series that boosted the family business and branded Gary as an early social-media guru. From there, his marketing career exploded, and suddenly Gary Vee seemed to be everywhere: consulting, speaking, vlogging, tweeting, and ...
Aug 02, 2021•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 360
Robert Reffkin had a hard time fitting in when he was growing up: raised by a single mom in Berkeley California, he was both bi-racial and Jewish, and had to learn to "feel comfortable with being uncomfortable." Even though he was a self-described C student, he was admitted to Columbia and landed a series of prestigious investment banking jobs, but often felt like he was failing. Then in 2012, Robert was tasked with writing a business plan as part of a job interview, but the plan was so intrigui...
Jul 26, 2021•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 359
Our second episode from the 2021 How I Built This Virtual Summit is from our innovation panel with Payal Kadakia of ClassPass, Tristan Walker of Walker and Company, and Perry Chen of Kickstarter. In this live conversation with Guy, the panel talks about how innovation doesn't require newness, but rather, authenticity. We'll be releasing more episodes from the Summit, so keep checking your podcast feed. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19...
Jul 22, 2021•42 min•Ep. 358
Bobbi Brown started out as a makeup artist in New York City, but hated the gaudy color palette of the 1980s. She eventually shook up the industry by introducing "nude makeup" with neutral colors and a natural tone. In 1995, Estée Lauder acquired Bobbi Brown Cosmetics and Bobbi remained there for 22 years, until she realized the brand was no longer the one she had built. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info....
Jul 19, 2021•46 min•Ep. 357
In the late 1990s, Ben Chestnut was a struggling young designer interning at an appliance company, when somebody suggested that he try designing for the internet instead. A few years later, Ben and two co-founders launched a web design agency, only to discover that the service they'd included almost as an afterthought—email marketing—was taking off among their small-business clients. The founders named that service Mailchimp and pivoted to it full-time in 2007, choosing a winking monkey as their...
Jul 12, 2021•1 hr 22 min•Ep. 356
When they were in their 20s, Reem Hassani and her brother Ahmed Rahim were not the kind of people you'd expect to launch a multi-million dollar business. Reem was a California artist moonlighting as a substitute teacher, and Ahmed had been living the bohemian life of a photojournalist in Europe. But these two children of immigrants from Iraq had an idea: to introduce the dried lime tea they remembered from their childhood to the U.S. Working out of Reem's 600-square-foot apartment in Oakland, th...
Jul 05, 2021•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 355
In the early 2000's, Philip Krim launched an e-commerce business out of his college dorm, selling everything from window blinds to eczema cream to yes, mattresses. Years later, inspired by online successes like Warby Parker and Harry's, Philip and his partners launched Casper, a DTC company that designed its own mattresses, compressed them into boxes, and helped turn a mundane purchase into an Instagrammable adventure. Within months, sales began to take off; and soon, copycat brands crowded into...
Jun 28, 2021•1 hr 21 min•Ep. 354
Our first episode from the 2021 How I Built This Virtual Summit is from our leadership panel with Cynt Marshall, CEO of the Dallas Mavericks, Chieh Huang, CEO and co-founder of Boxed, and Sadie Lincoln, CEO and co-founder of Barre3. In this conversation with Guy, the panel talks about the importance of showing vulnerability, and how leaders can build trust within their teams. We'll be releasing more episodes from the Summit, so keep checking your podcast feed. See Privacy Policy at https://art19...
Jun 24, 2021•35 min•Ep. 353
By her early thirties, Ava DuVernay was already a successful entrepreneur, having founded her own film publicity agency in Los Angeles. But after years of watching other people make films, she started to get an itch to tell her own stories onscreen. Ava's first films were rooted in deeply personal experiences: growing up with her sisters in Compton, performing Hip Hop at Open Mic Night at the Good Life Café in L.A. Her self-funded and self-distributed projects began to draw attention, and in 201...
Jun 21, 2021•1 hr 29 min•Ep. 352
In the early 90s, Rich Barton arrived to work at Microsoft just as the world wide web was taking off. He wound up pitching Bill Gates on an idea that was transformative at the time: to let everyday travelers book their own flights and hotels by giving them online access to previously hidden reservation systems. Expedia launched from inside Microsoft but was so successful at transforming the travel industry that it was spun out into a public company with Rich as CEO. Then in 2005, Rich moved on t...
Jun 14, 2021•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 351
Carla Bartolucci grew up in an Italian-American household, eating fresh gnocchi and ravioli made by her mother, and lobster caught by her father. She met her husband Rodolfo while studying abroad in Italy; and by the early 1990's, the two of them were running a small sandwich shop in Mystic, Connecticut. They eventually partnered with the Italian company Bionaturae to sell whole wheat pastas, sauces and olive oil in the U.S. When that partnership ended in a lawsuit, Carla decided to launch her o...
Jun 07, 2021•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 350
