Wisdom From The Top with Guy Raz

Mixing business and social justice isn't a strategy most companies are willing to adopt, which is why Dan Schulman's actions as CEO of PayPal have garnered so much attention. In 2016, he canceled a plan for an operations center in North Carolina after the state passed its infamous "bathroom bill." Schulman champions his "employee first" strategy and has raised wages and benefits for PayPal's workf...

Beth Comstock is comfortable with change. In college, she wanted to be a doctor, but organic chemistry wasn't her strong suit, so she shifted to journalism. When journalism didn't work out, she started working in publicity. So, when GE bought NBC in 1986 right as Beth was starting her career in advertising, she was ready to adapt again. She worked her way to becoming CMO of GE and then, the compan...

For years, it was a secret: the family that owned Lego was actually losing money on the company. The man who built the company back up into one of the biggest toymakers in the world, Jørgen Vig Knudstorp, reveals his controversial plan that led Lego back to profitability. It leaned on something that has always been Lego's strength: the creativity and passion of the children and adults who love to...

General Stanley McChrystal was born into a military family: three generations of men in his family were officers in the armed forces. He followed the family tradition and eventually rose up the ranks to become a General in the Army. While serving as the commander of Allied Forces in Afghanistan in 2010, he was forced to resign after he was quoted making disparaging remarks about President Obama. I...

After one of the most deadly disasters in the history of space flight, Ellen Ochoa was a leader in NASA's recovery. She fixed the technical things that went wrong, but the most critical changes, she says, were human. Why she thinks it's important to make sure that naysayers always have a voice, and how to encourage employees to do something very difficult: disagree with the boss. See Privacy Polic...

For over a decade as CEO of direct-sales giant Avon, Andrea Jung was one of the most powerful women in the cosmetics industry. During her tenure, Jung saw striking success, but also faced daunting challenges with a failed product rollout and massive restructuring. Since 2014, Andrea has brought her passion for supporting female entrepreneurs to her job as CEO of Grameen America, a non-profit focus...

It's not an understatement to say that Jim Collins is one of the most influential business writers in modern history. Collins, however, thinks of himself more as a researcher than an author. Each of his books, which includes Good to Great , Built to Last , and his newest, BE 2.0 , requires five or six years of crunching data before the writing can begin. But what's even more remarkable about Colli...

After becoming the CEO of PepsiCo in 2006, Indra Nooyi became the first woman and immigrant to run a Fortune 50 company. From Chennai, India, to Yale's School of Management, Nooyi worked her way up from The Boston Consulting Group, Motorola, and ASEA Brown Boveri before eventually landing at PepsiCo, overseeing the global operation of its countless drinks, snacks, and restaurants. Nooyi's memoir,...

In 2012, to say there was a crisis at Best Buy — is an understatement. In January, Forbes published an article with the headline: WHY BEST BUY IS GOING OUT OF BUSINESS. And then, in March, the company reported a loss of $1.7 billion. In April, the CEO resigned because of an "inappropriate relationship" with an employee. Hubert Joly stepped in, determined to fix Best Buy, and he started by valuing...

Black Entertainment Television helped make the first Black billionaire in the US and was the first Black-owned business traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Debra Lee, a young lawyer drawn to the company's mission, was pivotal in turning the small, revolutionary cable station into an industry staple. Growing BET and finding confidence as a CEO amid cultural controversy. See Privacy Policy at htt...

Gordon Bethune took an unlikely path to becoming a leader in the airline industry. A self-described "hoodlum," Bethune dropped out of high school, joined the Navy, and became an airplane mechanic. With that experience, he gave Continental Airlines a tune-up, pulling it out of bankruptcy and guiding it through the deep uncertainty that followed the September 11th attacks. See Privacy Policy at http...

How Ajay Banga ran one of the world's largest companies with an unusual leadership philosophy... something he calls "the decency quotient." And how he turned Mastercard from a credit card company into a company that's known for technology, innovation, data, analytics, and A.I. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-...

Cheryl Bachelder decided to go into business after an early setback derailed her potential career in music education. She became President of KFC years later, but a job that started as a major opportunity wound up being a massive failure. How Bachelder learned from her failures and went on to turn Popeyes into one of the biggest success stories of the past decade. See Privacy Policy at https://art...

General David Petraeus took on a uniquely complex leadership challenge in Iraq in the aftermath of the U.S.-led war there. He oversaw the training of a new and entirely Iraqi army. He says that the key to leadership is first getting the big ideas right, then constantly refining them, and communicating them across the whole organization. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and Californi...

As a child growing up in Ibadan, Nigeria, Dara Treseder was often told to get her head out of the clouds. But her mother encouraged her to dream big and to follow her ambition if it would lead her to contentment. For Treseder, that meant moving across the world to attend both Harvard and Stanford, and chasing a deeply-held desire to make a positive impact on the world. Her career in marketing bega...

Today, Marvel is one of the most substantial forces in American media, but when Peter Cuneo joined the company as CEO in 1999, it was a struggling publishing house teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Ten years later, Disney bought Marvel for $4.5 billion. Cuneo tells his unlikely origin story and how he became the "turnaround superhero." See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and Califor...

Marvin Ellison took the tough jobs nobody wanted, and it got him from retail security guard all the way to CEO of two Fortune 500s. Now, when things are precarious, companies like JCPenney and Lowe's call him in. Marvin Ellison says that limiting failure limits success. Find out exactly what he means in this episode. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at...

When Gap was failing, Mickey Drexler didn't just increase sales. He made it into a pop culture staple of the 80s and 90s. But that wasn't enough to keep him from getting fired. At his next job, he was not just the CEO. He bought stock with his own personal money to bolster J.Crew. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell...

Margaret Heffernan is an entrepreneur, CEO, executive leadership coach, and author of six books. Her often counter-intuitive insights on collaboration, consensus-building, and decision-making have earned her a reputation as a smart thinker who challenges conventional business wisdom. In her latest book, Uncharted: How to Map the Future , Margaret explains why attempts to predict the future, even i...

Strauss Zelnick has a real knack for saving companies in crisis. A Hollywood wunderkind, he's led major film studios, record labels, and gaming companies since his early 30s. How he turned a small, self-financed Zelnick Media Capital into an industry powerhouse and why he thinks developing relationships and humility are critical to success. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and Calif...

How do you get from the cubicle to the C-Suite? George Scangos started out doing scientific research, but he says his people skills got him all the way to the CEO's office at one of the biggest biotech companies in the world. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When Keith Krach first heard of Docusign, he knew it could be huge. He was convinced it would capture one of the biggest markets ever seen. He also knew exactly the play he needed to run to get it there, based on his decades of experience in the C-suite. He shares the secrets he collected over the years so Docusign could, as he says, "go mach 3 with our hair on fire." See Privacy Policy at https:/...

Why growth isn't always good, and how to infuse integrity into a toxic company culture. Zenefits was on its way to a multi-billion dollar valuation but, behind the scenes, it was all about to come crashing down. When Jay Fulcher was called in to save the company, his first job was laying off almost half its employees. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at...

When Bill George was a kid, he didn't dream of becoming a pro-athlete or an astronaut or a famous musician. Instead, he imagined the Fortune 500 companies he would lead as CEO. He achieved the dream when he took a medical technology company called Medtronic from a fledgling operation to a Fortune 500 company in 10 years. Yet, he was unsatisfied and felt lost. Then, his career took a turn toward ac...

Jeff Jones is no stranger to crisis. From the 2013 Target data breach to a tumultuous period at Uber, he's helped navigate companies out of some tough situations. So, when Jeff became the President and CEO of H&R Block in 2017, he was prepared. How a young man from West Virginia went from being an ad guy to heading one of the biggest tax preparation companies in the US during a global economic dow...