How I Built This with Guy Raz

Before Steven Udvar-Hazy was out of high school, he started working as an airline consultant. You could do that sort of thing back in the 1960’s, if you knew the industry—which indisputably, he did. Born in Communist Hungary, Steven was obsessed with aviation at an early age, memorizing plane serial numbers and schedules for fun.  In his early 20’s he started his own small airline in Californ...

Our brain activity can reveal a lot about our physical and mental health. And thanks to Ramses Alcaide and his team at Neurable, we’ll soon be able to glean insights from our brainwaves in our own homes — without ever stepping foot in a laboratory... This week on How I Built This Lab, Ramses recounts the inspiration behind launching a brain computer interface company, and previews his company’s fi...

In 2005, the trajectory of Holly Thaggard's life completely changed when a good friend of hers was diagnosed with skin cancer. Holly realized that most people weren't taking sunscreen seriously, so she sidelined her vocation as a harpist to dive headfirst into the unfamiliar world of SPF. After a false start trying to market her sunscreen to elementary schools, Holly pivoted to retail, hiring a pu...

Not only is BETA Technologies completely changing the flying experience with its all-electric aircraft, it’s upending the logistics of shipping altogether...  This week on How I Built This Lab, founder and CEO Kyle Clark shares how BETA is building zero-emission, battery-powered aircraft, as well as a national charging network. Also, how the transition to electric will address aviation’s emis...

Kinko’s copy shops were once so ubiquitous that the name became a kind of shorthand for photocopying. Paul Orfalea started the first shop in 1970 in a tiny converted hamburger stand near UC Santa Barbara, called it Kinko’s after his childhood nickname, and eventually grew it into a sprawling global chain.    Rather than relying on a franchise model, Paul partnered with co-owner...

Tom Szaky runs a recycling company, but he’d rather live in a world where recycling was obsolete...  Today, his company recycles everything from shampoo bottles and makeup containers to snack wrappers and cigarette butts. And through their recent Loop initiative, TerraCycle works with consumer brands to develop packaging that is actually reusable -- an even more effective waste-reduction tact...

Over a nine-year period, Spencer and Jeff Jan grew Solo Stove from a DIY project into a 9-figure brand. Their original idea was modest: work a four-hour week and earn a passive income from a DTC camping stove, which was easy to use and as sleek as a spaceship. When they launched the business in 2010, the brothers lived thousands of miles away from each other: Spencer in Shanghai, where he located...

Most of us are dependent on our smartphones. In fact, Americans spend an average of three hours a day on these devices — devices that only came into existence relatively recently.  Designers Kai Tang and Joe Hollier have long believed that it’s not normal for humans to be so attached to their phones. So they launched their own company in 2014 to create an alternative...called the Light Phone....

A life-threatening diagnosis changed the course of Andrew Abraham’s career and led him to found some of the most popular nutritional drinks and powders on the market. After recovering from his illness and attending med school, Andrew noticed that some of his patients—just as he had—struggled with keeping food down. So during his first year of residency, he developed the same kind of organic n...

There’s a new car coming to market that will probably make its owners search out the sunniest spots in the parking lot... Aptera Motors is designing and manufacturing this car: a plug-in electric hybrid that can run up to 40 miles on a single, solar-powered charge.  This week on How I Built This Lab, Steve Fambro shares how he and his co-CEO revived their once-defunct auto company thanks to t...

Tetris is one of the most popular video games of all time, and Henk Rogers helped make it happen. He first discovered the game at a convention in 1988, and immediately saw how elegant and addictive it was. As a software developer based in Japan, Henk set out to obtain selected publishing rights, but waded into a tangle of red tape that stretched from Japan to the U.S. to the Soviet Union. He event...

The COVID-19 pandemic changed education forever. But Sal Khan says an even bigger educational revolution is just around the corner … This week on How I Built This Lab, Sal returns to the show to talk about a new learning platform he’s building at Khan Academy. It’s called Khanmigo, and it uses the same generative AI technology behind OpenAI’s world-changing ChatGPT to help students with their scho...

A relentless hunt for their favorite foods and drinks led Scott and Ally Svenson into launching not one but two multi-million dollar businesses. The first came about in 1990s London when they discovered that British coffee meant instant coffee. So, the Washington natives decided to start the Seattle Coffee Company in the U.K, inspired by their love of Starbucks—which was still only in the U.S. But...

Chris Urmson is one of the founding fathers of the autonomous vehicle industry. He participated in three DARPA self-driving vehicle challenges before joining the team that launched Google’s self-driving car project, which later became Waymo. Eventually though, Chris saw an opportunity to scratch an entrepreneurial itch and bring his expertise to an industry that was ripe for it: trucking. This wee...

On the premise that a smartphone could vastly improve his love life, Joel Simkhai built one of the most popular dating apps in the world.  In 2008 he was living in LA and looking for an easy way to meet other gay men.  He saw the early potential of the GPS-enabled iPhone, and a year later, launched Grindr: an app where users could determine if a potential date - or a quick hookup - was d...

Keller Rinaudo Cliffton thinks we’re already experiencing the technology of tomorrow, just that it’s not evenly distributed... About a decade ago, Keller transformed his smartphone robot company into Zipline, which today orchestrates on-demand drone deliveries all over the world. Zipline got its start delivering critical medical supplies to hospitals in Rwanda: a testament to Keller’s belief that...

While working as a psychologist in the Bay Area helping people with their problems, Mary Waldner discovered one of her own; at the age of 43, she was diagnosed with celiac disease. The foods she’d been eating all her life had been making her sick, so Mary came up with a solution. She decided to create a healthy gluten-free snack cracker that she could make at home, and eat in restaurants when her...

Matanya Horowitz is not above dumpster diving in the name of innovation. His company, AMP Robotics, has developed robots to help waste management facilities better sort through incoming trash and separate recyclables. AMP has tested and refined their technology since launching in 2014, in part with materials that Matanya and his team personally picked from the garbage. Today, their robots can be f...

While working long hours as a Wall Street analyst, Melissa Butler started making lipstick in her kitchen as a hobby. But it soon turned into an obsession, costing thousands of dollars. She was frustrated by the lack of diversity in the cosmetics industry, and as a Black woman, wanted to create lipstick colors that complimented her complexion and style. So in 2010, she launched The Lip Bar, with bo...

When Aryé Elfenbein and Justin Kolbeck met in 2011, they had no intention of starting a business. Aryé was a cardiologist, and Justin was a diplomat who had lived in countries all over the world. But their chance meeting at a dinner party led to a deep friendship focused on working together to change the world. Through regular Saturday morning brainstorming sessions, they settled on pursuing a sci...

From a coffee cart parked uneasily in a grocery parking lot, Travis and Dane Boersma grew Dutch Bros into a sprawling chain of 700-plus beverage restaurants. Before they got started in Grants Pass, Oregon, in 1992, Dane had never tried espresso, and neither brother knew how to make it. But with the help of nearby experts, they learned the craft—and even improvised their own recipes, like mocha mad...

When Donnel Baird was a child, his parents would regularly use the oven to heat their Brooklyn apartment -- a dangerous and energy-inefficient practice that’s unfortunately not unique to New York City. As an adult traveling the country with the Obama for America campaign, Donnel saw countless homes and apartments wasting power and jeopardizing resident safety because of dated infrastructure. He fo...

When Chris Ruder set out to revive a ball-and-net game from his childhood, he was pretty sure he would fail. He wasn’t really into sports and had never run a business. But after 15 years, Spikeball has grown into a thriving brand with a global following. Spikeball is a two-on-two game where players hit a rubber ball onto a circular net. Invented in 1989, it never took off. But in 2003, when childh...

Palm oil is a wonder ingredient, used in almost everything from toothpaste and oat milk to biodiesel and laundry detergent. But to keep pace with rising global demand, producers have burned down millions of acres of rainforests to create more palm oil plantations, worsening climate change and making the air hazardous for entire countries in the process.  C16 Biosciences has a plan to save tho...

Two college-era friends set out to change the face of shaving—and in the process, took on one of the biggest companies in the world. In 2011, Andy Katz-Mayfield and Jeff Raider realized they shared a common frustration with an everyday purchase: razors. Locked behind counters like diamond bracelets, they were inconvenient to buy and expensive to replace, with branding that seemed more suited to Ja...