Rapid Response

This episode of Rapid Response first aired in 2025. Live on stage at Masters of Scale Summit in San Francisco, Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky explores what role business could and should play in building the future. He shares his candid perspective on politics, creativity, and AI — taking listeners from Airbnb’s humble beginnings to bold plans for the company’s future. Through a designer’s...

Prediction markets incentivize truth. Everything else incentivizes clickbait. That's the core argument Luana Lopes Lara makes for Kalshi — the prediction market platform she co-founded that has gone from $5 billion to $22 billion in valuation in under a year, and is now being sued by New York's attorney general for $36 billion. Luana joins Rapid Response to make the case that Kalshi is fundamental...

What happens when you interview an AI? Bob Safian found out, and while it didn't break out into Cantonese, it was stranger than he expected. This episode is split in two: first, a conversation with Eline van der Velden, the Dutch actress-turned-tech-founder who created Tilly Norwood, the AI "actor" who sent Hollywood into a spiral. Then, Bob sits down with Tilly itself. Eline explains how a person...

The second a brand like Hershey stops being culturally relevant, says its CEO Kirk Tanner, you should be worried. He joins Rapid Response to explain exactly what he's doing to make sure that never happens. Tanner also reveals why GLP-1 users are actually good for the candy business, how AI is now routing Hershey's sales force in real time through Target and Walmart, and why the Reese's Oreo collab...

This episode of Rapid Response first aired in 2025. Live on stage at Masters of Scale Summit in San Francisco, Patagonia CEO Ryan Gellert and Chobani CEO Hamdi Ulukaya joined the New York Times’ David Gelles to explore the intersection of values and commerce. They reveal their different strategies for dealing with an activist White House, the pressure for what David calls “anticipatory compliance,...

The world has never faced so many humanitarian crises at once, and the systems built to respond to them are fraying. Tjada McKenna, CEO of Prosper Global — the organization long known as Mercy Corps — joins Rapid Response during UN General Assembly week to share what she's seeing firsthand from Syria to Sudan to Ukraine to Gaza, and why she rebranded a 40-year-old institution in the middle of a fu...

For nearly two decades, Amy Webb's annual Tech Trends Report was required reading for anyone trying to keep up with technology. But this year, Webb killed the report and replaced it with something more applicable for leaders in an AI era. In this episode, CEO of Future Today Strategy Group Amy Webb joins Pioneers of AI host Rana el Kaliouby to unpack her 2026 Convergence Outlook and examines how A...

Own or be owned. That's Codie Sanchez's ultimatum for anyone serious about their financial future. The founder of Contrarian Thinking and author of the new book Own or Be Owned returns to Rapid Response to make her most impassioned case yet for why buying a small business is the most reliable path to wealth that most people are too scared to take. She breaks down what "cowboying" your business is...

AI isn't simplifying your life… Yet. It's mass-producing more options, more decisions, and more noise. Axios CEO Jim VandeHei returns to Rapid Response to make the case that the antidote isn't a better productivity app, it's a ruthless, three-part system he calls Confront, Delete, Amplify. VandeHei shares what he's learned from running Axios by these principles, including calling a leadership meet...

On built a $4 billion sports brand in 16 years with a garden hose, a Roger Federer dinner in Zurich, and a young designer who watched a Halloween YouTube video. Co-founder and co-CEO David Allemann joins Rapid Response to explain why the defining decade for On is still ahead, and why being the most premium brand matters more than being the biggest. He breaks down the leadership shake-up that broug...

The NFL is the world's most valuable sports business, and it keeps growing. But is the growth sustainable? Sports journalist Michele Steele joins Rapid Response to kick off the 2026-2027 NFL season with a clear-eyed look at what's driving record franchise valuations, why quarterback salaries keep exploding, and what the league's dizzying array of streaming platforms means for the fans. She also br...

Jesse Cole loved baseball. He also knew most people thought it was too long and boring. So he disrupted America’s pastime by putting on a yellow tux - and an incredible show. In this episode of Masters of Scale, the founder of the Savannah Bananas welcomed host Jeff Berman to Anaheim Stadium before a show recently to talk about how he’s scaling Fans First Entertainment into a growing league that s...

For decades, e-commerce rewarded the biggest brands that could buy their way to the top of search results. AI is changing that. Shopify COO Jess Hertz joins Rapid Response to share what Shopify's data reveals about the agentic shopping revolution in real time, and how the company is building the infrastructure layer that makes products discoverable and purchasable by AI. Plus, why Shopify's engine...

The economy is strong, prices are still too high, and the job market is sending mixed signals. The Federal Reserve is navigating all of it while fending off the most overt political pressure in its modern history. Austan Goolsbee, President of the Chicago Fed, joins Rapid Response ahead of the Central Bank’s highly-watched meeting in Jackson Hole, to give his most candid read on what's actually go...

This episode originally aired on Rapid Response in April 2026. With the ongoing disruption in the Strait of Hormuz and fuel prices still elevated, few auto executives are feeling the pressure more acutely than Ford Motor Company CEO Jim Farley. He joins Rapid Response to give a candid account of what the turmoil means for the auto industry, and for an iconic American brand navigating one of the mo...

Fencing is one of the oldest sports in Olympic history. It's also one of the least watched domestically. Phil Andrews, CEO of USA Fencing, is on a mission to change that, and with the 2028 Los Angeles Games on the horizon, he's running out of time. Andrews joins Rapid Response to reveal how he's building a sports brand with almost no budget and no marketing playbook, cold-calling CMOs, crashing Co...

Few leaders have a better real-time read on how AI is actually reshaping the workforce than Hayden Brown. As CEO of Upwork, the platform where 18 million freelancers meet the businesses that need them, she sees what the monthly jobs report can't: which skills are surging, which jobs are quietly disappearing, and why 23% of businesses that moved work to AI are already bringing humans back. Brown jo...

Jim Collins is the author of some of the most important business books of all time, like Good to Great and Built to Last. For his latest project, instead of profiling iconic companies, he zoomed in on extraordinary individuals we can learn from. He joined Masters of Scale to reveal how icons like Grace Hopper and John Glenn illustrate lessons on how to navigate the cliffs and fog of life.  Fi...

It's only mid-August, and Watch Duty CEO John Mills says it's only going to get worse. With British Columbia under a province-wide state of emergency and Spokane still reeling from the most destructive wildfire in Washington state history, Mills joins Rapid Response to take us inside the most catastrophic fire season his team has ever faced. Since the LA wildfires made Watch Duty a household name,...

What’s the business story of the summer thus far? SpaceX’s stumble post-IPO? AI security breaches? Ongoing tension surrounding the Strait of Hormuz? Host Bob Safian sits down with Rapid Response producer Alex Morris to weigh in. The pair also break down the impact of Uber COO Andrew Macdonald’s appearance on the podcast, and how it sparked a broader conversation throughout the business world about...

Rapid Response host Bob Safian recently sat down with Eric Becker on The Long Game to discuss leadership, innovation, and what makes a category-defining business. Bob breaks down what goes into becoming a truly “backable" founder, drawing from his experience profiling early-stage leaders like Mark Zuckerberg and Brian Chesky. The pair also dive into the future of AI and what it means for productiv...

For decades, Wieden+Kennedy has defined the brands that shape culture. Now, as economic uncertainty, AI, and shifting consumer expectations rewrite the rules of business, CEO Neal Arthur joins Rapid Response to break down why understanding your audience is no longer just the marketing team's job. Arthur shares what today's most successful brands are getting right and how leaders can better underst...

When media mogul Bryon Allen took a controlling stake in BuzzFeed in May – becoming its CEO and chairman – it was his latest bold bet in a volatile media landscape. The Allen Media Group founder joins Rapid Response to explain his strategy for BuzzFeed (note: we recorded this before BuzzFeed announced layoffs for 35% of its staff), taking over Stephen Colbert's former CBS time slot with his Comics...

Serena Williams doesn't just defy convention on the court. She’s also applying her competitive mindset to entrepreneurship and venture investing, recently rebranding her firm from Serena Ventures to Starfire Ventures. Serena joins Bob Safian to discuss the investment strategy that has led to 16 unicorns now in her portfolio, what she looks for in founders, and how partnerships with companies from...

The Toronto Tempo arrived in the WNBA this season with record-breaking attendance, a 53-point single-game performance, and the weight of being the league's newest franchise. As the season pauses for All-Star Weekend, President Teresa Resch joins Rapid Response to take stock of what she's built, what's surprised her, and what she's still figuring out in real time. She talks about running a sports f...