From traveling the world opening restaurants as a teenager to pioneering new strategies at legacy brands, Kat Cole knows the importance of asking the right questions to forge a path to scale. Host Jeff Berman dives into Cole's fascinating career, exploring how she led teams at iconic brands like Hooters and Cinnabon, applying the lessons to steering the billion-dollar health supplement company Athletic Greens, where she’s just been named CEO. Plus, how her renowned Hot Shot Rule can change your ...
Jul 25, 2024•39 min•Transcript available on Metacast Reid Hoffman's support for Kamala Harris and other Democrats — and distaste for former President Trump — has plunged him into headlines, in opposition to Elon Musk and others. Reid joins Rapid Response host Bob Safian to take us inside Silicon Valley’s reaction to Harris’s presidential bid, why some business leaders are embracing Trump, and what the Democratic Party is telling major donors like himself. Plus, Reid shares blitzscaling advice for the Harris campaign and explains why the number one...
Jul 24, 2024•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast With Kamala Harris suddenly poised to become the Democratic presidential nominee, expectations have been turned on their head for voters, fundraisers, and the business world. Axios political correspondent Alex Thompson joins Rapid Response host Bob Safian to share what his sources have said behind the scenes about what drove Biden’s decision-making, the role of business leaders going forward, and how the Harris 2024 enterprise is going into startup mode. For more info, visit: www.rapidresp...
Jul 23, 2024•25 min•Transcript available on Metacast Silicon Valley investor Mike Maples Jr. is known for having a ‘Midas Touch.’ Think of a tech start-up that has changed your life in the last 20 years, and he was probably helping fuel its growth. Mike talks with host Reid Hoffman about the insights he’s gathered from decades of investing, which he shares in his new national bestseller book: Pattern Breakers. They also riff on how to build – and invest – in the AI revolution. Synthetic voiceover of Reid Hoffman used in this episode was prod...
Jul 18, 2024•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast Summer’s not so hot at the movie theaters, and the same goes for streaming. Nothing’s come close to last year’s Barbie-Oppenheimer success, and Janice Min of entertainment news startup Ankler Media can’t say she’s surprised. Janice vets Hollywood’s offerings for the summer entertainment cycle, weighs in on deals from Paramount/Skydance to the astronomical price of NBA rights, and lays out the financial reality for media companies in an age of scrambling for everyone’s digital attention. For more...
Jul 16, 2024•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast Can drinking water look cool? That was the driving question behind Liquid Death founder Mike Cessario’s big business idea. Since launching its first tallboy cans of water in 2019, Liquid Death has used humor, design and smirk-worthy marketing to grow into a beverage company valued at $1.4 billion. Mike talks with host Jeff Berman about how he built the irreverent brand to help him escape his professional boredom. Read a transcript of this episode: https://mastersofscale.com Subscribe to th...
Jul 11, 2024•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast With 346 events over 17 days at this summer’s Paris Olympics, how do we zero in on the most important events, storylines, and takeaways? CEO of the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee, Sarah Hirshland, returns to Rapid Response to provide an insider’s guide, including a preview of Team USA’s strategy. Hirshland also talks about the latest Chinese doping scandal, how changes to the NCAA put the future of collegiate sport in jeopardy, and plans for the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. For more ...
Jul 09, 2024•26 min•Transcript available on Metacast This week, Masters of Scale is bringing back one of our favorite episodes. It’s Reid Hoffman’s conversation with Ron Howard, the legendary director, producer, actor, and co-founder of Imagine Entertainment. In this episode, Ron shares how he manages the balance between staying true to his vision, while also embracing change. It’s a crucial topic for many reasons, but especially poignant as Hollywood encounters artificial intelligence. Read a transcript of this episode: https://mastersofsca...
Jul 04, 2024•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast The fashion world is at a sudden inflection point. Big luxury players are struggling, e-commerce markets are floundering, and ultra-fast players like Shein are disrupting. The Business of Fashion’s Imran Amed takes us inside the tumult, providing a framework to understand the trends and their larger economic impact. Plus: how manufacturers are adapting to new sustainability scrutiny, and the first year of Pharrell Williams’ tenure at Louis Vuitton. For more info, visit: www.rapi...
Jul 02, 2024•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast New AI products are rapidly changing the landscape for businesses. This is especially true for the writing tool Grammarly. The $13 billion dollar software company’s CEO Rahul Roy-Chowdhury has taken the helm in the midst of a profound disruption. Host Jeff Berman talks to Rahul about how his time at Google helped prepare him for this moment, why he’s doubling down on building trust with customers, and how he thinks AI will shape the future of work. Read a transcript of this episode: https:...
Jun 27, 2024•34 min•Transcript available on Metacast While many plant-based food brands have struggled recently, Pinky Cole’s fast food chain Slutty Vegan keeps growing, with new restaurants across the U.S. Pinky sits down with Rapid Response host Bob Safian to explain how she’s scaling the brand despite lawsuits, social media attacks and a flurry of vegan restaurant competitor closures. Pinky also shares the story behind her recent keynote at Savannah State University, where she gifted the HBCU grads almost $9 million in entrepreneurial tools and...
Jun 25, 2024•23 min•Transcript available on Metacast Entrepreneur Noah Kagan wants everyone to feel empowered to start a business. That’s the core message of his new book, Million Dollar Weekend. He’s founded multiple companies worth at least a million dollars, including AppSumo. That’s his software marketplace worth more than $80 million. Noah shares lessons from his scale journey, and from the early flameouts at high-profile start-ups (like being employee number 30 at Facebook and an early staffer at Mint) that fueled a desire to prove himself. ...
Jun 20, 2024•32 min•Transcript available on Metacast Can nuclear energy, solar and wind farms, and carbon capture scale fast enough to save the planet? GE Vernova CEO Scott Strazik joins Rapid Response host Bob Safian on stage at the Climatech conference in Boston to detail how green energy is evolving in 2024. GE Vernova is a new company spun out from General Electric, and helps power around a quarter of the world’s electricity. Strazik explains how today’s electrical grid limits renewable energy’s potential, and why it desperately needs a “new b...
Jun 18, 2024•23 min•Transcript available on Metacast Founded at the dawn of the dot-com era, entrepreneur Adam Miller’s original concept for Cornerstone was a kind of Netflix for adult education: training courses through CD-ROMs. Migrating to online offerings for major corporate clients, Adam steered the company through tough times that included an encounter with a loan shark, markets collapsing, and global crises. By the time he sold the company two decades later – for more than $5.2 billion – Adam learned essential lessons about how to scale dur...
Jun 13, 2024•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast After Guild’s founding CEO suffered a stroke at the age of just 34, Bijal Shah was tapped to take the helm. Shah joins Rapid Response to share the story behind the emotional leadership change, and how she wrestled with the immense responsibility of shepherding a company out of crisis. Shah also discusses how Taylor Swift inspires her leadership, and why Guild recently partnered with Team USA ahead of the Paris Olympics. Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y...
Jun 11, 2024•24 min•Transcript available on Metacast James Dyson's journey to building a global invention enterprise began with a simple goal: to build a better vacuum. After 5,000+ prototypes and years of precise tinkering, his innovative bagless vacuum was ready. But none of the big brand names wanted it. So he started the Dyson company, betting that customers would be swayed by new technology, better performance, and distinctive design. Today the Dyson Corporation commands $9 billion in annual revenue, and — driven by engineering curiosity — de...
Jun 06, 2024•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast For anyone skeptical about crypto hype, Sheila Warren explains why it is here to stay, and what you might be overlooking. As CEO of the Crypto Council for Innovation, Warren joins Rapid Response to take us inside today’s crypto resurgence, in which 1 out of 5 Americans hold crypto in some fashion. Warren shares the story behind Congress’ recent bipartisan crypto bill, and how the industry is cracking down on bad actors and get-rich-quick schemes. Plus, how crypto is part of the underlying tech b...
Jun 04, 2024•25 min•Transcript available on Metacast Masters of Scale guest, psychologist, and “Grit” author Angela Duckworth also hosts the podcast “No Stupid Questions.” With her co-host, entrepreneur and executive Mike Maughn, she takes up questions on deep issues like purpose and productivity. In this episode called “Do You Need a Routine?” Angela and Mike share notes from their personal lives, colleagues, and experts about value of habit formation. Check out No Stupid Questions website: https://freakonomics.com/series/nsq/ Subscribe to the Ma...
Jun 01, 2024•39 min•Transcript available on Metacast Imagine all the highly motivated, high-achieving students who can excel at the most challenging colleges but lack the financial resources to attend. Matching this type of talent with full funding from top-tier schools is the mission of QuestBridge. CEO Ana Rowena Mallari recounts the organization’s 30-year scale journey, during which the program has fostered $5 billion in scholarships and helped 100,000 students. Co-founded by Mallari and Michael McCullough as a summer program at Stanford, Quest...
May 30, 2024•35 min•Transcript available on Metacast How will the return of meme stocks like GameStop and day trading influencers like Roaring Kitty alter the fintech landscape? Robinhood’s co-founder and CEO Vlad Tenev, who was a lightning rod for controversy when meme stocks first surged in 2021, joins Rapid Response to explain what’s the same and what’s different this time around. Tenev also shares how his family’s struggles in 1990s Bulgaria shapes his view of the U.S. financial markets today, and whether trading on Robinhood is like usin...
May 28, 2024•25 min•Transcript available on Metacast Masters of Scale goes under the hood of powerful AI in audio, unveiling a full vocal clone for founding host Reid Hoffman. Our CEO Jeff Berman, the Masters of Scale staff, and Reid himself tell the story of creating a synthetic voice we call “Reid-ish.” The company Respeecher is behind the technology, and its CEO Alex Serdiuk walks us through the speech replication process. Through “Reid-ish” we grapple with authenticity, disclosure, labor, and evolving norms around AI in media. Reid ponders wha...
May 23, 2024•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast Amid college campus protests over Palestine and Israel, stark US political divides, and legal challenges to diversity initiatives, business leaders face new pressure on whether to speak out and take action on issues of our time. Ken Frazier, former CEO of Merck, and Ken Chenault, former CEO of American Express, offer their unfiltered advice, as board members of the Harvard Corporation and two of America’s most prominent Black executives. It’s a candid conversation about the most controversial to...
May 21, 2024•30 min•Transcript available on Metacast Success looks different for everybody. But author and psychologist Angela Duckworth has found that whether we achieve success, or even seek it, may hinge on a characteristic that she calls “grit.” Angela’s 2016 bestseller Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance quickly became a must-read for business leaders. On Masters of Scale she describes her unlikely path to scaling the impact of her work, through becoming a public intellectual. We hear why she studied commonalities among high-achieving...
May 16, 2024•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast As Rapid Response begins a twice-weekly cadence, Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky returns to reveal how the company’s new Icons initiative points toward a surprising new chapter ahead. Host Bob Safian gets Chesky to open up about the mental struggles of being a high-profile CEO, plus the inside story behind Airbnb’s recent ad campaign targeting hotels. The pair cover so much, we’ve split the episode into two parts. Part 2 drops this Friday exclusively in the Rapid Response podcast feed. Ma...
May 14, 2024•33 min•Transcript available on Metacast Some business leaders have a seemingly psychic ability to spot trends, and take them mainstream at just the right moment. Ron Shaich is one of those. As a pioneering force behind fast-casual dining, Shaich saw that a growing number of Americans craved higher quality food in a relaxed yet speedy setting. His first major company, Au Bon Pain, paved the way for the meteoric rise of Panera Bread, with more than 2,000 locations nationwide. An accidental start running a convenience store first showed ...
May 09, 2024•28 min•Transcript available on Metacast We’ve reached a radical inflection point in the growth of women’s sports, particularly the WNBA. As college stars like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese enter the league, fans are clamoring for tickets and on social media, generating unprecedented excitement and business potential. WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert joins Rapid Response host Bob Safian to share how she plans to capitalize on this newfound buzz, and how NIL deals have transformed the business of sports for players and owners alike. Pl...
May 07, 2024•22 min•Transcript available on Metacast What started with three college friends looking for a healthy lunch in D.C. grew into Sweetgreen, a fast-growing restaurant business focused on salads and grain bowls. From a tiny 500-square-foot storefront to more than 220 locations nationwide, the Sweetgreen journey includes booking The Strokes for a "salad festival," adopting cutting-edge technology, and proving that fast food can include locally-sourced, farm-fresh ingredients. Listen to co-founders Jonathan Neman, Nathaniel Ru, and Nicolas ...
May 02, 2024•37 min•Transcript available on Metacast Khan Academy first rocked the education world with online video. Now Khan Academy CEO and founder Sal Khan has gone all-in on AI, convinced that it has immense potential to democratize and improve education. Khan tells Rapid Response host Bob Safian how an early outreach from OpenAI led Khan Academy to create an AI assistant called Khanmigo, which is already being used by thousands of students and teachers. Khan shares lessons from this real-world experiment, plus the inspiration behind his new ...
Apr 30, 2024•24 min•Transcript available on Metacast Every day we’re inundated with news and opinion pieces about America’s hopeless division — but is this really true? Axios CEO Jim VandeHei joins Rapid Response host Bob Safian to bust what he sees as myth, plus share his seemingly counterintuitive AI play. VandeHei also makes a case for why the era of business leaders speaking out on political issues may be behind us, and he weighs-in on the state of Buzzfeed, NPR, and where the future of news media is inevitably headed. Read a transcript of thi...
Apr 25, 2024•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast Maëlle Gavet is the CEO of Techstars, a pre-seed investor focused on early-stage entrepreneurs. It boasts a market cap of $111.6 billion, and supports founders in programs that span from Tokyo to Lagos to Alabama. Maëlle champions hard work, gratitude, and a questioning nature, qualities her grandfather imparted while she was growing up in France. She has carried her curiosity through a wide-ranging international career, in start-ups and scaled corporations. We hear lessons drawn from her vast e...
Apr 23, 2024•31 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
