How I Built This with Guy Raz

Some of the world's biggest industries sell products that we all need...but don't want to think about. That's what drew Jennifer Fitzgerald to insurance: she wanted to help people understand the often bewildering world of protecting themselves in case of emergencies. In 2013, she and her partner Francois de Lame left their stable and lucrative consulting jobs to create Policygenius, an online mark...

As a part of the 2021 How I Built This Summit (At Home) we have selected 10 Fellows, and we'd like to introduce you to each of them. In this episode: Kaitlin McGreyes founded Be Her Village to be a gift registry for expectant families that provides more than just...stuff. And Nicole Argüelles founded Alli to address period poverty and provide easy access to personal care and hygiene products in pu...

As a part of the 2021 How I Built This Summit (At Home) we have selected 10 Fellows, and we'd like to introduce you to each of them. In this episode: Mark Atlan co-founded ZappCare to help make sure that people living on tribal lands have access to health and medical services close to their homes. And Zach Correa hopes to connect users of lemonGRAFT to the people in their own neighborhood that gro...

Around 2003, after forays into banking, baseball cards, and—believe it or not—bobsledding, Marc Lore landed on an idea for an e-commerce business: a website to make it simple for parents to order diapers. The only problem, as he quickly discovered, was that it's impossible to make money selling diapers on the internet. But Marc and his co-founder had a strategy: they'd lose money on diapers, but m...

As a part of the 2021 How I Built This Summit (At Home) we have selected 10 Fellows, and we'd like to introduce you to them over the next couple weeks. In this episode: Katie Mitchell and her mother Katherine opened a book shop in Atlanta called Good Books, that centers Black authors and brings books into the community. And in Washington, D.C., Celena Gill and her three sons, Collin, Ryan, and Aus...

As a part of the 2021 How I Built This Summit (At Home) we have selected 10 Fellows, and we'd like to introduce you to them over the next couple weeks. In this episode: Pierre Paul, founder of a company called We Hear You that's developing a sign language translator that turns American Sign Language into audible speech and vice versa. Also, Toby Egbuna, co-founder of Chezie, a platform for job see...

In the pre-Internet 1970's, Sandy Lerner was part of a loosely-knit group of programmers that was trying to get computers to talk to each other. Eventually, she and Len Bosack launched Cisco Systems, making the routing technology that helped forge the plumbing of the Internet. But when things turned sour at the company, she was forced to leave, giving her the chance to start something entirely new...

After selling both of their social app companies and rethinking their day jobs, Paul Davison and Rohan Seth knew they should not get into the volatile business of social media again. Despite exploring more practical ideas in other industries, they were found themselves drawn to the potential of live social audio, and decided they had to build another social app. What they didn't know was that, as...

Daniel Humm dropped out of school at 14 to become a competitive cyclist, and supported himself by cutting vegetables and making soup stock at fine restaurants in Switzerland. When he eventually realized he'd never become a world-class cyclist, he pivoted to the equally competitive world of fine dining, and soon became a rising young chef in Switzerland, and then San Francisco. In 2006, he was wooe...

Jay Shetty was living the life of a rebellious teen in London when a friend talked him into attending a talk by a Hindu monk. It was a life-changing event, and started Jay on a path to become a monk himself and join an ashram in India. He left monastic life after three years, but took many of its lessons with him, and decided to share them with others. His YouTube videos began to spread on social...

While working at a farmers market in Chicago, Jennifer Martin had a Jack-in-the-Beanstalk moment—a chance encounter with some tiny kernels, which wound up growing into a small giant of a business: Pipcorn, snacks made of heirloom corn. Along with her brother Jeff and sister-in-law Teresa, Jennifer launched the brand in 2012, hand-popping mounds of popcorn and hand-stamping the packaging. Within a...

Bayard Winthrop is the CEO and founder of American Giant, known for its American-made hoodies, t-shirts and jeans. When the pandemic brought on production holds and storefront closures, Bayard found himself working from his car parked in front of his house. He speaks with Guy about the growth American Giant saw last year due to the increased demand for comfortable work-from-home clothing, and he o...

Before Elizabeth Cutler and Julie Rice met, they shared a common belief: New York City gyms didn't have the kind of exercise classes they craved, and each of them wanted to change that. A fitness instructor introduced them over lunch in 2005, and before the meal was done they were set on opening a stationary bike studio, with a chic and aspirational vibe. A few months later, the first SoulCycle op...

Lindsay Peoples Wagner got her first taste of the fashion industry interning at Teen Vouge , where she cleaned massive closets filled with the season's latest trends. She eventually went on to serve as the publication's editor-in-chief for nearly three years. During this pandemic, she left her job at Teen Vouge and took on two new roles: the editor-in-chief of The Cut , a digital publication, and...

Before Robinhood became one of the most loved and most hated stock trading platforms in the U.S., it was just another tech startup, launched by two mathematicians with an audacious idea: make stock trading mobile, make it fun, and make it free—with no commissions, and no minimum balances. In 2013, Vlad Tenev and Baiju Bhatt decided to pursue this idea full-time. They sidelined their first business...

In the early 2000s, the online music community was defined by MySpace, illegally downloaded music, and poorly made band websites. Then came Bandcamp – a music marketplace where fans can directly and easily support their favorite musicians. The company has steadily grown since its launch in 2007, but last year traffic and sales surged. CEO and co-founder Ethan Diamond talks with Guy about launching...

In the early 1990s, as Amanda Hesser's college friends were interviewing for their first cubicle jobs, she chose a different path: one that led straight into the kitchens of Europe, where she cooked traditional recipes and learned the rhythm of the seasons from a crusty French gardener. By 24, she had landed a book deal and one of the most coveted jobs in journalism: writing about food for the New...

After giving up diet soda, Kara Goldin started adding fresh fruit to her drinking water to make it more fun. This inspired her to create Hint water, a line of unsweetened flavored water beverages that are now available in over 30,000 stores nationwide. Kara shares how sales have almost doubled as Hint invested in e-commerce during the pandemic, and offers her advice for entrepreneurs trying to bre...

As a product developer, Bob Monahan worked with some iconic brands: the Pump at Reebok, the Taurus and Mustang at Ford. When he moved on to work at a baby products company, he happened to discover another set of wheels that caught his eye: a sleek-looking stroller that could accommodate a car-seat or a bassinet. Bob was itching to start his own venture, so in 2006, with the help of his wife Lauren...

Vivian Ku is a Taiwanese-American restaurateur who owns three different Taiwanese restaurants in Los Angeles. After the pandemic halted her plans for expansion, Vivian decided to close her two restaurants until May and pivoted her expansion plans into a breakfast pop-up. Vivian talks to Guy about why she decided to serve Taiwanese food and the pros and cons of opening a restaurant during a pandemi...

In 2010, Justin McLeod was in business school, still trying to get over a bad breakup that had happened years before. Determined to solve his own problem and convinced that the best way to meet people was through friends of friends, he built an app to replicate that experience. Gradually, Hinge grew into a streamlined swiping platform that yielded mixed results: good dates, bad hookups, mismatched...

Lisa Baird stepped in as commissioner of the National Women's Soccer League in March 2020 and just two days into her job the entire multi-billion dollar sports industry went dark. Lisa talks with Guy about the difficulties the league overcame to launch their Challenge Cup tournament last summer, and the need for equal coverage of women's sports. These conversations are excerpts from our How I Buil...

Miguel and Veronica Garza grew up in Laredo, Texas, in the kind of family that did almost everything together. So when Veronica realized that a grain-free diet was helping her cope with debilitating health issues, the rest of the family—all six of them—adopted the same paleo-friendly diet. Soon Veronica was making her own almond flour tortillas at home and selling them at a CrossFit gym that the G...

With the wedding industry dramatically impacted by the pandemic, co-founder and CEO of Zola, Shan-Lyn Ma decided to pivot. Instead of just wedding planning, Zola would expand to include livestreaming virtual weddings as well as an e-commerce marketplace for home goods. Shan-Lyn talks with Guy about her forecast for the wedding industry this year and how to get more girls interested in entrepreneur...

Rick Steves spent the summer after high school backpacking through Europe on two dollars a day—sleeping on the floor, sneaking into museums, and subsisting on a diet of bread and jam. When he came home, he found people were hungry for tips on how to visit Europe on the cheap, so he began teaching classes, and was soon hawking a self-published guidebook out of his car. Eventually, he started leadin...