Masters of Scale

When's the right time for hypergrowth? Should you take investment when you don’t need the money? How do you deal with an exhausted team? Global entrepreneurs facing hyperfast growth ask Reid their questions about raising capital, pivoting their product, bootstrapping vs. blitzscaling and more. Featuring six entrepreneurs from Endeavor , and cohosted by Harvard professor Youngme Moon, of the g...

How do you find joy in your life? Our host, Reid Hoffman, finds it through friendship, and the genuine, honest, and intimate conversations it brings. In this special episode of Meditative Story, from the same producers as Masters of Scale, Reid shares his passion for connecting with others by asking big questions. Read a transcript of Reid Hoffman's Meditative Story at: https://podcast.meditatives...

Rent the Runway co-founder Jenn Hyman knows: Behind every successful business is another business backstage, one you might not expect. Rent the Runway is known for creating a glamorous "closet in the cloud,” but as Hyman explains, it achieved unicorn status by mastering a few less glamorous businesses — including the world’s largest dry-cleaning operation, and a data insights practice that’s chang...

To find your big idea? Look for it. And look for it. And be ready to act. Spanx founder Sara Blakely was actively seeking a business idea when she thought of Spanx. Then she moved fast, found help in the right places, and went all-in. The result: A billion-dollar company & women's wardrobes transformed. With cameos by National Geographic Explorer Andrés Ruzo, former director of the US Patent &...

Faced with an impossible challenge? Don’t reinvent the wheel. Look for someone who’s already solved the problem, and lift them up. Megan Smith calls that technique “scout and scale.” She used it as the United States' CTO. She did it as an exec at Google. She did it as CEO of PlanetOut. And she continues today with the company she co-founded, shift7. Cameo appearance: Monique Sternin (co-founder of...

Recorded live at Summit LA: Every great founder has a second purpose — something outside their main business they're trying to get done in the world. And every successful company is like a Trojan horse, carrying this second purpose forward. No one knows this better than Robert F. Smith. You may know him for his legendary Morehouse commencement speech (in which he promised to pay off the student lo...

Want to improve any idea? Find someone who disagrees with it. This is something legendary investor Ray Dalio knows. But there’s a difference between constructive and destructive conflict – and Dalio is a master at spotting the difference. In constructive conflict, a team has a shared goal, whether or not they have differing opinions. And this is the key to success. Cameo appearances: Steve Horgan...

Think you've raised enough money for your startup? Think again. You have to run through a minefield of unexpected expenses as an entrepreneur. And you never know where the big opportunity will come from — or if you'll need to make an unexpected, expensive pivot to stay afloat. So always, always raise more money than you think you need. Mariam Naficy shares her white-knuckle experiences founding st...

Every leader has to set the drumbeat for their company — the culture, mission, and values that get the entire team in sync. And the rhythm has to be true to them. Jeff Weiner is a master at this. When he was the CEO of LinkedIn, Jeff grew users from 33 million to 660 million, and grew revenue to more than $7 billion. His drumbeat? Compassionate management. Cameo appearances by: Chris Tomson (Vampi...

How did Bill Gates scale BOTH a global business and a global philanthropy? He spotted an inflection point in history — and accelerated it. What does that take? A great idea, great timing and also: Great partners. Because even Bill Gates doesn’t go it alone. In Part 1 of this special two-part episode, Bill reflects with Reid on the founding and growth of Microsoft — how he not only spotted an infle...

What can entrepreneurs learn from a genre-crossing, multi-platinum musician? How to take a big opportunity — and leverage it into something epic. From his earliest days as a founding member of the Black Eyed Peas, will.i.am learned from mentors how to not only identify big opportunities but compound them. From the Super Bowl to the first iTunes commercial; from the founding of Beats and his tech c...

Tory Burch built a billion-dollar business from the ground up, by speeding forward when others might have hit pause, and showing watchful patience when others may have gone full tilt. In our live onstage interview, Tory shows how this approach plays out in her global business – and in her impactful foundation that supports women business owners. Live audience energy and great music make this first...

You may think that to scale you need to cut humans out of the equation. The opposite is true. You can harness the power of the "human cloud" to solve almost any problem — as long as you keep the word “human” in the equation. That's what TaskRabbit CEO Stacy Brown-Philpot championed for this community of people who work with each other, teach each other, and continually learn from each other. With...

How can I scale during a downturn? Should my company be a pirate or the navy? Reid Hoffman answers questions from early-stage entrepreneurs all over the world, like: How do you gain trust? How do you build a company culture? Co-hosted with Jason Feifer, editor-in-chief of Entrepreneur magazine and "Problem Solvers." Featuring eight entrepreneurs from the global network Entrepreneur First . Ja...

Forget being a unicorn. Learn to be a phoenix. Your company can last 100+ years — but you'll need the resilience to rise and fall, and rise again. Fiat’s chair John Elkann shares the principles that helped the "horseless carriage" company founded by his great-grandfather survive the ups and downs of a century of business — including competitor attacks, leader shakeups, financial crises and more. O...

When Drew Houston founded Dropbox, he knew he faced some fierce competition (hello, Google, Apple and Microsoft). But he didn’t back down. Why? Because he believed in his product, and he knew he had an advantage those big, cumbersome competitors could never exploit: Dropbox was lean, focused and fast. Hear how he outmaneuvered the big dogs – and what's next for Dropbox. Drew Houston's reading list...

As an entrepreneur, you have to find a way to recharge. This new podcast, from the creators of Masters of Scale, is designed to create calm amid an always-on schedule. The episode was inspired by Reid’s interview with Arianna Huffington, where she told a sliver of this story: it starts in the tiny Athens apartment where she grew up, and takes her to the University of Cambridge. Listen for the less...

When Anne Wojcicki co-founded 23andMe, she carved out a brand-new space in personal health -- helping people become experts on their bodies right down to the DNA level. Then the federal regulators came calling. But instead of trying to outwit the FDA in the name of moving fast, Wojcicki made the call to work with regulators directly and collaboratively. Hear how she embraced "red tape" as a tool t...

In your company’s darkest moment, remember: You CAN pivot from failure to success. But only if you slash and burn everything that isn’t working. Slack’s co-founder and CEO, Stewart Butterfield, has twice navigated this kind of Big Pivot. He launched two different game companies, which both (surprise!) turned into game-changing communications platforms: Flickr and Slack. Hear the thinking behind ma...

Often a small tweak, a rethink of a feature, is what helps your product break out of the pack. Just ask the founder of the Bumble dating app, Whitney Wolfe Herd. She rebounded from one dating app startup (that you may have heard of) with a brilliant idea for a whole new way of connecting. Hear how the small tweaks along the way helped her move into huge new markets. With cameo appearances by Steve...

It’s never too late to join the entrepreneurial party. We've heard all the stories of young geniuses, but plenty of influential entrepreneurs founded companies in their 30s, 40s, 50s. There’s value to being a late-stage founder – like the fact that you’re bringing along all your life experience. That’s what Gwyneth Paltrow did when she launched Goop. Paltrow transitioned from Hollywood star to sta...

On Masters of Scale, we talk a lot about how businesses grow. But we also talk about how people grow: How key decisions (and happy accidents) can shape your future, and how your setbacks can actually set you up for success. On this special Graduation Episode, guest host Jordan Harbinger teams up with Reid Hoffman to share advice that will help you navigate choices in your career, with insights fro...

Early-stage startups are a lot like pirate ships – they need a buccaneering spirit to survive. But every startup needs to shed its pirate nature at some point, and evolve into something more akin to a navy – no less heroic, but more disciplined. As the new CEO of Uber, Dara Khosrowshahi took on the most extreme pirate-to-navy transition in startup history. Though Uber blitzscaled to become the mos...

You can bootstrap your business to scale, but you'll have to make your own luck. Nobody knows this better than Mailchimp's Ben Chestnut. He used a DIY ethos to grow a $600M company without ever raising a dollar of outside funding. The Mailchimp story is the exception to Reid's rule (always raise more money than you think you need!). The episode explores a range of options for those who don't fit t...

No organization that’s entirely closed — or entirely open — can scale as successfully as an organization that combines both. Yes, it invites a bit of chaos – but chaos breeds innovation. Joi Ito has spent his career championing radically open systems, from Creative Commons to cyber currency. As a past director of the famed MIT Media Lab, he focused on facilitating conversations that keep pace with...