Masters of Scale

Latest Episodes:

Bumble’s Whitney Wolfe Herd: Small changes with big impact Nov 21, 2023

Show notes

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 start-up (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 Spohn (AbleGamer) and Marissa Mayer (Google, Yahoo).

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Sam Altman: Customer love is all you need Nov 20, 2023

Show notes

The true seed of scale is customer love, which you can’t buy, hack, or game. Sam Altman, former president of Y Combinator, scaled countless start-ups by focusing on this one idea: Finding 100 users who love you is better than 1 million who kinda like you. As CEO of OpenAI, Sam leads the creation of genuinely useful AI products. He shares timeless insights in his interview from 2018 on how to build on the love of passionate customers to create world-shifting tools.

Read a transcript of this episode: https://mastersofscale.com/sam-altman-why-customer-love-is-all-you-need/

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Rapid Response: GaryVee wants your attention, w/VaynerMedia’s Gary Vaynerchuk Nov 16, 2023

Show notes

In our attention economy, what does it take to capture the cultural zeitgeist? VaynerMedia’s Gary Vaynerchuk – or GaryVee – joins Rapid Response host Bob Safian to preach the need for widespread empathy and fearless leadership, and he uncovers the secrets to his new platform’s unconventional scale. Plus, Vaynerchuk shares why he is the only person at his company with firing privileges, and why your happiness is worth fighting for above all else. In these trying times, it’s hard to not be inspired by Gary’s practical optimism.

Read a transcript of this episode: https://mastersofscale.com/

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Tap into collective genius, w/Reshma Saujani, founder of Girls Who Code & Moms First Nov 14, 2023

Show notes

What happens when you tap into the collective genius of a diverse group?

Does the cross-pollination of ideas let you create something greater than the sum of its parts?

The real magic happens when you create a network of changemakers: people united by a common cause who will drive impact and innovation. Doing this will vastly improve your odds of forging groundbreaking solutions to the challenges you face.

Reshma Saujani did this when she founded Girls Who Code, which has supported thousands of young women and non-binary people to take up impactful roles in the tech industry and beyond. With her latest venture, Moms First, she's again deploying her skills as a master of impactful networking.

In this episode, Reshma reveals how she's built inclusive networks of collaborators to tackle intractable problems from unexpected angles and unlock massive opportunities.

Read a transcript of this episode: https://mastersofscale.com/

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Rapid Response: Your pandemic business takeaways are wrong, with co-authors Joe Nocera and Bethany McLean Nov 09, 2023

Show notes

Kick the conventional wisdom. In this episode of Rapid Response, Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera sit down with Bob Safian to discuss their book, The Big Fail: What the Pandemic Revealed About Who America Protects and Who It Leaves Behind. The pair faced blowback for their damning investigation of business leadership in the wake of COVID. They share how lockdowns may have miscalculated risk versus reward, the pros and cons of a market-based society, and the era’s parallels to the Enron debacle. Plus, they share vital leadership lessons about adapting to new information instead of relying on precedent, and why no decision should be made out of panic.

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Reid Hoffman confronts the AI critics, w/WaitWhat CEO Jeff Berman Nov 07, 2023

Show notes

Are AI’s harshest critics causing irreversible harm to humanity? How far should leaders lean into AI? And just what would Reid sound like speaking Chinese with a British accent?

Reid Hoffman sits down with CEO of WaitWhat and longtime friend Jeff Berman to tackle these pressing questions and more. Join them in an unguarded exploration of how the AI landscape has continued to shift in the six months since Reid published Impromptu, the book he co-authored with ChatGPT.

Reid also gives a sneak peek into his work with Microsoft's unreleased AI text-to-speech tech, and discusses why he chose not to join Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak and other tech leaders in signing an open letter warning about the existential threat of AI.

Plus, you’ll hear how early stage business leaders should tap their network to take advantage of AI, and how larger organizations should create long-term strategic plans that can adapt at the drop of a hat.

Read a transcript of this episode: https://mastersofscale.com/

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AI + You | 5 ways to ethically build — and use — AI Oct 31, 2023

Show notes

In this installment of our series, AI + You, we dissect the ethical concerns that builders and users of AI must keep in focus. As the AI rollout continues at dizzying pace, we all have a part to play in ensuring human wellbeing is the bedrock principle. To guide you, host Reid Hoffman speaks with Stanford HAI’s Fei-Fei Li, Inflection’s Mustafa Suleyman, Adept’s David Luan and more AI pioneers. Rather than be intimidated by these ethical issues, we’ll leave you inspired to play a part in shaping a bright future in which humanity is elevated by AI.

Read a transcript of this episode: https://mastersofscale.com/

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Rapid Response: Gaza in crisis, w/Mercy Corps’ Arnaud Quemin Oct 26, 2023

Show notes

Keeping calm in a crisis is essential — and extremely difficult. In this special Rapid Response, we hear what it’s like right now in the Gaza Strip. Mercy Corps’s Arnaud Quemin talks with Bob Safian from Amman, Jordan about how his team in Gaza is coping, sharing first-hand accounts from those on the ground. As director of the humanitarian organization’s Middle East operations, Arnaud himself had to relocate from Beirut due to the crisis. He shares how he’s trying to help his team and others in need. Despite high emotions, he says, there’s an imperative to stay neutral, to enable eventual progress.

Read a transcript of this episode: https://mastersofscale.com/

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Rapid Response: Supporting Palestinian builders versus destroyers, w/Kind’s Daniel Lubetzky Oct 23, 2023

Show notes

Can you foster peace between Palestinians and Israelis through business engagement? That’s been a priority of Daniel Lubetzky, founder of Kind Snacks, who has worked with entrepreneurs across the region for decades. Lubetzky joins Bob Safian for this special episode of Rapid Response to draw a distinction between Palestinians and Hamas, and to call for support for what he calls "builders" versus "destroyers" on both sides of the conflict.

Read a transcript of this episode: https://mastersofscale.com/

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Rapid Response: On the ground in Israel, w/Hello Heart's Maayan Cohen Oct 18, 2023

Show notes

In the midst of conflict and turmoil, Hello Heart CEO Maayan Cohen leads her team with compassion, resilience, and a commitment to justice. In this special episode of Masters of Scale Rapid Response, Cohen describes navigating the unprecedented challenges of running a business in Israel while the country is at war, all while prioritizing the safety and well-being of her employees and their families. This episode does contain descriptions of specific acts of violence that may be disturbing. Please take appropriate care.

Read a transcript of this episode: https://mastersofscale.com/

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See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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