Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world's best known companies. How I Built This weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built. Order the How I Built This book at https://www.guyraz.com/
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Culver's: Craig Culver
Craig Culver says that when he opened the first Culver’s restaurant in a small Wisconsin town, there were three cars in the parking lot on a good day – and two of them were his family’s. Those early years of selling frozen custard and ButterBurgers were hard, but the business was in Craig’s blood. He grew up working in restaurants run by his parents, and Culver’s was a family affair too—one that was more challenging to run than a typical burger joint because of its large menu, with pot roast, soups, and fried fish. The restaurant wasn’t supposed to grow into a behemoth chain, but it franchised quickly, and today there are nearly 900 across the country. On a per-restaurant basis, it’s one of the most profitable quick service restaurants in the country.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
ICYMI... HIBT Lab! Blogilates: Cassey Ho
Cassey Ho is the face of Blogilates, best known for its free online workout videos which have more than a billion views on YouTube alone. As impressive as that is, digital content is just one part of Cassey’s multi-million dollar entrepreneurial portfolio, which has grown to include her POPFLEX apparel brand, additional product lines at Target, a Pilates certification program, and more. This week on How I Built This Lab, hear about the risks Cassey took to defy cultural expectations in pursuit of a more fulfilling – and in some ways, forbidden – career, along with her perspective on what it takes to grow a business in the creator economy.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Wirecutter: Brian Lam
When Brian Lam walked away from a high-profile job at Gizmodo to launch a product review blog, he had no plan for how it would make money. He just knew what he wanted: a user-friendly site with reviews that could be read in a few minutes, with the best products clearly listed, all backed up by meticulous research. But when he launched The Wirecutter in 2011, Brian’s business partners worried that the site’s posts were too brief and too infrequent to build an audience on the web, where clickbait was king. Eventually, Brian’s targeted approach paid off; users trusted his recommendations, he hired more writers, and traffic and revenue grew. In 2016, The Wirecutter was purchased for $30 million by the New York Times, where it was rebranded simply as Wirecutter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
HIBT Lab! Against All Grain: Danielle Walker
Growing up, Danielle Walker’s family often convened for big meals prepared by her Italian grandmother, Grandma Marge. Back then, Danielle enjoyed a wide variety of food without restriction; but she began experiencing severe abdominal pain in her 20s that ultimately led her to totally transform her diet—cutting grains, lactose, sugar and more. As Danielle found relief in this approach—and realized that others with similar ailments could as well—she began compiling her recipes in an online blog called Against All Grain. Before long, the self-taught chef became a bestselling cookbook author, more recently branching out with her own product lines and cooking courses. This week on How I Built This Lab, Danielle talks with Guy about being an ‘accidental entrepreneur’ as she chronicles her journey to building a multifaceted business centered around healthy eating. Plus, Danielle shares her advice for other creators looking to build an audience and discusses food’s potential to help millions suffering from autoimmune diseases.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
ButcherBox: Mike Salguero
Back in 2015, when Mike Salguero set out to buy some grass-fed beef for himself and his wife, he had to meet a farmer in a parking lot, who handed him the beef in a trash bag. Naturally, Mike figured there had to be a better way. At the time, he was running a company that was slowly cratering, and he didn’t know the first thing about sourcing or packaging meat. But he had a hunch that if he could figure it out, he could build a successful home subscription business, shipping humanely-raised meat across the country. Mike connected with farmers and packers, launched a Kickstarter campaign, and began working with food and fitness influencers to promote ButcherBox. Today, without taking on a shred of VC investment or even a bank loan, the company does roughly half a billion dollars in revenue. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
HIBT Lab! OpenAI: Sam Altman
Artificial Intelligence was once the realm of science fiction. But over the last several years, advances in machine learning and deep neural networks have moved us closer to a reality where computers can learn and solve problems independently, the way a human does. From art and music to medicine and politics, the potential applications of AI are nearly endless, and the technology just keeps getting better.This week on How I Built This Lab, Guy talks with one of the leaders in the field of AI development, Sam Altman. Sam talks about his journey from Stanford dropout and teenage entrepreneur to president of the legendary startup incubator Y Combinator and co-founder of the nonprofit OpenAI. Plus, Sam shares his hopes and fears for the future of AI and how his company is working to ensure it ultimately benefits all of humanity. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
HOORAE: Issa Rae
Obsessed with TV and passionate about writing, Issa Rae sent an unsolicited script to CBS’s Cosby when she was still in middle school. By her 20's, she realized there was a certain type of character that was absent from the media landscape—a character she would eventually inhabit in her breakout YouTube series, "Mis-Adventures of Awkward Black Girl." From there, Issa created the five-season HBO hit Insecure, but first went through a bruising gauntlet of rejections and reversals as she learned to navigate Hollywood. Today, Issa has built a company—HOORAE Media—which produces her new HBO show, Rap Sh!t, and multiple other TV and film projects. Listen to The Great Creators launching September 20thSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
HIBT Lab! Wonder: Marc Lore
Picture this: you just wrapped a long day of work and you are starving! You open a delivery app and place an order from your favorite restaurant. About an hour later, you get a notification that your meal has arrived. You’re practically salivating as you tear open the bag, and then...a rude awakening — your dinner became cold and soggy in transit. This frustrating and all-too-common experience is exactly what Marc Lore is trying to solve with his latest venture, Wonder.This week on How I Built This Lab, Marc returns to the show to share how Wonder, recently valued at $3.5 billion, has the potential to disrupt the entire food delivery and home dining industry. Plus, Marc offers advice on how to approach big challenges and discusses several other business ideas he’s been cooking up since leaving Walmart last year.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Introducing: The Great Creators with Guy Raz
The Great Creators with Guy Raz premieres on September 20th, featuring conversations about creativity with some of the most celebrated actors, musicians and performers of our time. Each week, Guy sits down with notable and beloved entertainers to trace their life’s journey, dive deep into their work, and illuminate the source of their creativity. With each episode you’ll have a true appreciation for how your favorite creators found greatness, and might even feel inspired to ignite your own creativity.In a recent episode, Guy interviewed actor, comedian and talk show host Stephen Colbert. They talked about Colbert’s journey, from his early days doing stand-up in Chicago to taking the coveted late-night gig at CBS, and how each experience helped sculpt him into the legend we know today, and his source of creativity throughout it all.Listen to The Great Creators with Guy Raz: wondery.fm/tgc-hibtSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Bombas: David Heath and Randy Goldberg
David Heath and Randy Goldberg saw an opportunity to disrupt a long dormant—and arguably boring sector...socks. They met at a startup in their 20s, each already had their own side hustles before they hatched a plan to launch a business together. Randy and David didn’t initially intend to get into the sock business, but in 2011, David read that socks are the most requested clothing item at homeless shelters. That led them to start a company they called Bombas based on a promise: for each pair of socks a customer bought, another would be donated to the homeless. Within about ten years, their one-for-one start-up turned into a quarter of a billion dollar business that has expanded into sweatshirts, underwear, and t-shirts.Listen to The Great Creators launching September 20thSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
HIBT Lab! SOURCE Global: Cody Friesen
Water is all around us–quite literally, there is enough water in the air we breathe to meet all of humanity’s needs and then some. Engineering professor Cody Friesen invented a solar-powered device that captures this vapor and transforms it into drinking water. Cody began manufacturing these ‘hydropanels’ with his Arizona-based company SOURCE in 2014, and today they’re used in more than 50 countries worldwide.This week on How I Built This Lab, Cody talks with Guy about the prevalence of water scarcity in the U.S. and around the globe, and his company’s work to become the world’s first renewable, fully-digitized drinking water utility. Plus, the two discuss how entrepreneurs should be thinking about the growing renewable energy market.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Rivian: RJ Scaringe
When you consider the risk of doing business, it doesn’t get much bigger than starting a car company: competition is formidable, startup costs are in the billions, and very few people believe you can pull it off. That’s the massive challenge RJ Scaringe walked into in 2009, when he launched his truck and SUV company, Rivian. To add to the risk, RJ wanted to build fully electric vehicles while attracting drivers who’d never bought them, so he knew his trucks had to be fun and sporty: appealing in their own right. Rivian’s journey has taken RJ from an old warehouse in Florida to a massive Midwestern car manufacturing plant; and from years of stealth planning to months of anticipatory buzz from buyers and the industry. Rivian rolled its first trucks off the line in 2021, and is hustling to fulfill tens of thousands of vehicle reservations from excited customers. There have been pivots, sleepless nights, and, of course, multiple supply chain issues, but today, Rivian is valued at $30 billion and is a major player in the electric vehicle industry.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
HIBT Lab! Malala Fund and Our Place: Shiza Shahid
On October 9, 2012, Shiza Shahid’s life changed forever. It was on that day that 15-year-old Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman, capturing the world’s attention. Before long, 22-year-old Shiza found herself leaving her corporate job to join a recovering Malala and her father in launching the Malala Fund, a nonprofit that advocates for girls’ education across the globe. Little did Shiza know, this venture was actually just the beginning of her entrepreneurial journey...This week on How I Built This Lab, Shiza recounts the childhood experiences that forged her commitment to public service and advocacy—ultimately shaping her worldview and leading to her first encounter with Malala. She also discusses her pivot to the for-profit world with Our Place, the cookware company she co-founded in 2019 that’s both profitable and making an impact.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
S'well: Sarah Kauss (2020)
In 2009, Sarah Kauss had a well-paying job in real estate development, but she was itching to do something more. On a hike in Tucson with her mom, she got an idea for a business while swigging warm water from a metal thermos: Why not design a water bottle that kept cold things cold and hot things hot, but was also beautiful to look at? Just six years after launch, S'well reportedly made $100 million, and today, Sarah is especially focused on how the brand can help eliminate plastic waste around the world.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
HIBT Lab! Greg Solano and Wylie Aronow: Bored Ape Yacht Club
You might not expect a deep friendship to bloom from an argument about favorite authors...in a Miami bar...during spring break. Yet that’s exactly how Greg Solano and Wylie Aronow’s long journey to becoming business partners began... Fast forward more than a decade, and Greg and Wylie are now co-founders of Yuga Labs—the company behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection. Since the collection was unveiled in spring 2021, the value of each digital ape has skyrocketed, with celebrities like Paris Hilton, Snoop Dog and Madonna getting in on the action. Within a year of its founding, Yuga Labs received a whopping $4 billion valuation, making it one of the fastest companies ever to achieve unicorn status. This week on How I Built This Lab, Greg and Wylie recount their whirlwind success story in one of their first-ever public interviews. We hear how a shared love of storytelling and online gaming helped spawn the idea for the bored apes; plus, Greg and Wylie tell Guy about the next big endeavor for Yuga Labs: expanding into the metaverse.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.