How I Built This with Guy Raz

Working as a manager for nine years at JCPenney, Tom Campion learned a critical lesson about how to succeed in retail: you have to keep close track of inventory. Tom’s experience navigating the ebb and flow of style, color, and size—all without the benefit of computers—gave him the confidence to launch his own retail business, aimed at teenagers. In 1978, he and his partner Gary Haakenson opened their first store, Above the Belt, in Seattle, and soon tapped into the hot new “action sports” category and the growing popularity of surf, skateboard, and snowboard culture. Tom placed his stores in shopping malls, and created spaces where teenagers would want to hang out, by leaning into “organized chaos” as a design principle. Today, with roughly 750 stores, Zumiez is the largest action sports retailer 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.

Chef Sean Sherman is on a mission to revitalize and reimagine Native American cuisine. Growing up on a reservation in South Dakota, Sean ate a lot of highly processed foods provided by the U.S. government. It wasn’t until he started working in restaurants as a teenager that he began to learn about fresh ingredients and how to prepare them. But as Sean climbed the kitchen ranks, learning the techniques and recipes of European-style fine dining, he began to wonder what happened to the culinary traditions of his Native American ancestors. This week on How I Built This Lab, Sean talks with Guy about establishing a modern North American indigenous cuisine by cutting out non-native ingredients such as pork, chicken, beef, dairy, wheat and cane sugar. Instead, he cooks with heirloom varieties of corn, wild rice, foraged plants and native animals such as bison, salmon, duck and beaver. Under The Sioux Chef brand, Sean has hosted pop-up dinners, published a cookbook, operated a food truck, and in 2021, he opened Owamni, which won the James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When steaks don’t sell you shift to sticks; that’s how Chomps was born. After several failed ventures—one of which left him bankrupt—Pete Maldonado decided to take another chance on launching a business. He partnered with Rashid Ali to start a mail-order service similar to Omaha Steaks, but with grass-fed meat that was more suited to the Paleo diet. When the partners couldn’t get that off the ground, they shifted to individually-wrapped meat sticks; one of the first in a long line of ‘healthier for you’ protein snacks. For several years, each co-founder tried to manage the business as a side-hustle, but the sausage hit the fan in 2016 when a surprise order from Trader Joe’s left them scrambling to produce a million sticks. Today, Chomps is available in major chains across the country and pulls in more than $100 million a year. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Do you know who holds the record for making the world’s largest chicken nugget? How about the world’s largest sushi roll?If you know Nick DiGiovanni, then you know the answer to those questions. Each week, more than 15 million followers across YouTube and TikTok gawk and drool over Nick’s masterful and over-the-top culinary creations. Nick is at the helm of some analog business ventures too, including a DTC salt and seasoning company and his debut cookbook, Knife Drop, which publishes later this year. This week on How I Built This Lab, Nick talks with Guy about overcoming shyness to become an on-camera personality, and his recent decision to forego Harvard Business School to continue on his path as a creator. Nick also opens up about his struggles to set strong work-life boundaries and speculates about his professional future. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Let’s say you had a passion but thought of it only as a hobby; certainly never the seed of a billion-dollar company. Plus, you are studying for a career in something unrelated to business. That’s Maureen Kelly’s story, CEO of Tarte Cosmetics. She was pursuing a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and already had TWO Master’s degrees when she realized she didn't want that to be her career. What she wanted was to launch a makeup company—despite having no significant start-up money, no experience, and no connections. How she did it is a story of pure moxie. She relentlessly knocked on the doors of chemists, manufacturers, retailers, and the fashion press. She maxed out her credit cards and enlisted the help of friends and family, turning Tarte into a wildly successful brand.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When you think about self-driving cars, you might imagine relaxing in the back seat while a vehicle carries you to your destination. But according to Dave Ferguson, nearly half of all car tips that Americans take don’t actually need any passengers at all. That’s because we spend a lot of our time driving around just to pick things up, like groceries and takeout.This week on How I Built This Lab, Dave talks with Guy about his vision of a future where many of these everyday errands could be done by robots. Dave’s company, Nuro, builds autonomous vehicles that are meant to deliver goods rather than carry passengers. Already they’ve run pilot deliveries with big-name partners like Domino’s Pizza, Uber Eats, and Kroger Grocery stores, and in the next few years, they aim to expand their service to cities all across the country. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In 2007, brothers Hank and John Green lived thousands of miles apart, so they started posting video blogs to each other on a strange new platform called YouTube. People began tuning in, and the daily Vlogbrothers posts became an early viral hit. Over time, the brothers grew that single channel into a sprawling collection of businesses, including a production studio—Complexly—that makes some of the most entertaining educational content on the internet. They’re also both hugely successful authors; John’s young adult novel The Fault in Our Stars is one of the best-selling books of all time. With every success, Hank says he’s asked himself, “What’s exciting? What’s causing you the most stress? Head in that direction.”See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On October 9, 2012, Shiza Shahid’s life changed forever. It was on that day that 15-year-old Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman, capturing the world’s attention. Before long, 22-year-old Shiza found herself leaving her corporate job to join a recovering Malala and her father in launching the Malala Fund, a nonprofit that advocates for girls’ education across the globe. Little did Shiza know, this venture was actually just the beginning of her entrepreneurial journey...This week on How I Built This Lab, Shiza recounts the childhood experiences that forged her commitment to public service and advocacy—ultimately shaping her worldview and leading to her first encounter with Malala. She also discusses her pivot to the for-profit world with Our Place, the cookware company she co-founded in 2019 that’s both profitable and making an impact.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In 2012, Daina Trout, her husband Justin, and her best friend Vanessa Dew were sitting around a kitchen table spit-balling possible business ideas. Their biggest contender seemed to be a natural product to treat hair loss. Turns out, it's harder than they thought to make one, so they landed on something completely different: a brand of homemade kombucha they called Health-Ade. After nine months of brewing kombucha in their kitchen and selling it at local farmer's markets, the three co-founders quit their jobs to pursue Health-Ade full time. In just seven years, Health-Ade brewed 120,000 bottles of Kombucha every day, and did close to $200 million in retail sales.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Chelsea Fagan got her first credit card when she was a senior in high school. She quickly maxed it out, racking up debt that would burden her through her early twenties. Then, in 2014, Chelsea started a blog as a way to keep track of her spending habits and get her financial life back on track. She called it “The Financial Diet.”This week on How I Built This Lab, Guy talks with Chelsea about how she turned that blog into the multimedia personal finance business it is today. Plus, Chelsea shares why she prioritizes employee satisfaction over growth and explains her judicious approach to brand partnerships.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When he was 8 years old, Joel Clark loaded bags of his mom's whole grain pancake mix into a red wagon to sell door-to-door. By the mid-90s, he and his older brother had upgraded to selling the mix out of a Mazda sedan and calling it Kodiak Cakes. As he tried to scale the business, Joel made some risky business decisions and almost went bankrupt, but eventually got the brand into Target—a major turning point. Today, Kodiak Cakes is one of the best-selling pancake mixes in America.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

YouTubers Kelsey MacDermaid and Becky Wright – better known as The Sorry Girls – have always had an affinity for production. When they met as film students back in 2010, little did they know that the DIY videos they were creating for fun would eventually lead to full-fledged careers co-founding and leading their own media company. But building to where they are now, with over 2 million subscribers and counting, didn’t exactly come with a blueprint…This week on How I Built This Lab, Kelsey and Becky talk to Guy about pursuing the uncharted territory of a YouTube career, their philosophies on navigating brand deals, and their take on growing a business in the creator economy without compromising on values.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

As a music industry mogul and founder of I.R.S. Records, Miles Copeland prided himself on making deals that were easy to say “yes” to. With a mixture of shrewd business skills, swagger, good taste and great timing, Miles signed or managed some of the most popular bands of the 1980's, including R.E.M., The Go-Go's, and The Police. After getting his start booking little-known British bands in the early 1970's and nearly going bankrupt after a failed tour, Miles eased back into the business by promoting punk groups—who didn’t care that he was broke. He then landed one of the most important deals of his career by convincing A&M Records to take a chance on The Police (whose drummer, Stewart Copeland, was Miles' brother). After I.R.S. dissolved in the mid 1990's, Miles remained a force in entertainment, launching new labels, branching out into world music, and managing Sting’s career until 2001.  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

According to the CDC, 6 in 10 adults in the U.S. have a chronic disease like cancer or diabetes. Meanwhile, the process for discovering new drug treatments is critically expensive and inefficient. About 90% of drug candidates fail to gain FDA approval; the average cost to develop a new drug is over $1 billion; and testing can take over 10 years.Noam Solomon is on a mission to change this. His company, Immunai, is using artificial intelligence to create an atlas of the human immune system. This week on How I Built This Lab, Guy talks with Noam about how Immunai’s immune system mapping is accelerating the development of new personalized drug therapies. Plus, Noam shares how Immunai’s culture of ‘not knowing’ drives scientific innovation. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Working as a Hollywood makeup artist in the early 2000s, Rea Ann Silva designed a sponge that reshaped the face of beauty. She'd been looking for a technique to simplify makeup touch-ups without worrying about the smudges or streaks that were easily detected on HDTV. Her solution? A teardrop-shaped sponge—hand-cut from a foam wedge—that could apply makeup from any angle, and absorb just enough water to be extra-efficient. Actors and fellow makeup artists raved about the sponge, so Rea Ann cold-called an industry insider—who almost hung up on her before agreeing to listen to her idea. That call led to a fruitful partnership that helped Rea Ann launch Beautyblender in Hollywood pro shops, then Ulta and Sephora. Today, the bright pink teardrop sponge is at the center of a multi-million-dollar beauty brand, available in over 50 countries.  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It was a love for Ricky Martin that started it all...Beatriz Acevedo thought that if she could only become a DJ, she could get his attention and marry him. While marriage to Ricky was not in the cards, an illustrious career in radio, TV, and eventually digital media was. Beatriz is now a serial entrepreneur: her first venture, mitú, is published content for a growing young Latino market. Soon after selling mitú in 2020, she launched Suma Wealth to help young Latinos build wealth and navigate the complex American financial system.This week on How I Built This Lab, Beatriz takes Guy on a journey through her career in media production and her more recent pivot to financial services. She also discusses the importance of a culture-first approach to serving Latino customers, and the interactive and educational approach her new company is taking to close the Latino wealth gap. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

With no formal training in business or computer design, Nelson Gonzalez and his cofounders decided to do what almost no other company was doing in the mid-1990’s: make personal computers specifically for gaming. They started as a tiny custom shop in Miami, and eventually began building PC’s for avid gamers, who were willing to pay top dollar for higher speed, better graphics, and a brightly-colored chassis that looked like the head of an Alien. Despite ongoing challenges with sourcing parts and getting loans, Alienware became one of the fastest-growing private companies in the U.S. In 2006, it was purchased by Dell for an undisclosed amount, and remains one of the most popular gaming PC’s in the country.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Growing up in Ethiopia in the 1980s and ‘90s, Sara Menker saw the devastating effects of drought and famine firsthand. Later as a commodities trader on Wall Street, Sara realized that a major driver of food insecurity around the world was a lack of good data to predict weather events, crop yields, and food prices. That realization led Sara to found her company, Gro Intelligence, in 2014. This week on How I Built This Lab, Sara shares how Gro Intelligence uses a combination of artificial intelligence and human expertise to help private companies, nonprofits, and governments better understand agricultural markets and address global food challenges. Plus, Sara talks about building the Gro team and the importance of founders understanding all of the different jobs within their companies.  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Growing up in 1960's Chicago, Dave Anderson didn't eat much deep dish. Instead, his dad took the family to the South Side for barbecue, and those memories—and aromas—stayed with him.For years, Dave tinkered with his own recipes for sauces and sides while working as a salesman and business advisor to Native American tribes. Finally in 1994, he opened his first barbecue shack in the last place you might expect to find one: the little town of Hayward, Wisconsin.The chain grew quickly—too quickly—and Dave developed a love-hate relationship with the brand he'd created, but never lost his passion for smoked ribs and brisket. Today, Famous Dave's has over 100 restaurants across the U.S., making it one of the largest barbecue chains in the country.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Growing up, Andrew Rea dreamed of becoming a Hollywood filmmaker. But the special effects production job he landed after college left him feeling…uninspired. After a series of creative defeats and mounting relationship troubles, his therapist suggested he find a new creative outlet. Andrew decided to make a short cooking video inspired by an episode of Parks and Recreation and uploaded it to YouTube...This week on How I Built This Lab, Guy asks Andrew about his journey from TV and movie buff to YouTube cooking sensation. His channel, Babish Culinary Universe now has nearly 10 million subscribers. Plus, Andrew candidly shares how his struggles with mental health have shaped his career.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In the mid-1990’s most Americans had probably never even heard of yerba mate, but when David Karr and Chris Mann were first introduced to the South American drink, they were hooked. Together with three other friends, they decided to launch a company that would bring mate to the American market. Based in San Luis Obispo, California, the co-founders of Guayakí Yerba Mate spent years living in a van and driving all over the country, brewing up free samples for consumers, and convincing natural food stores to sell their product. It would take almost 15 years of grinding away before the company turned a significant profit, but the founders were powered by a mission to do business in a way that supports communities and the environment. Today, Guayakí has annual revenue of over $100 million, and their canned and bottled beverages are available all across the U.S.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Millions of Americans don’t have enough to eat — a startling fact considering 40% of the food produced in the U.S. gets thrown away. And a lot of that food… from restaurants, supermarkets, office buildings and more… is perfectly safe to eat. What’s worse is that this discarded food waste produces harmful methane emissions that contribute to global climate change.Jasmine Crowe-Houston is an entrepreneur who became obsessed with these problems. In 2017, she founded Goodr, which works with businesses to take unused food and deliver it to those who need it. Instead of paying waste management companies to throw surplus food into landfills, businesses can work with Goodr to deliver that food to local nonprofits that get it to people in need.This week on How I Built This Lab, Jasmine talks with Guy about solving the logistical challenge of delivering surplus food to people experiencing food insecurity. Plus, the two discuss Jasmine’s decision to launch Goodr as a for-profit organization, and the growing corporate focus on sustainability that’s led to Goodr’s rapid growth.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Anthony Wood helped transform the media landscape…twice. First, in the early 2000’s, when he invented a device that let you record, pause, and re-watch live TV. The DVR was a game-changer, but the company Anthony built around it—ReplayTV—was eventually out-maneuvered by TiVo. Unfazed, Anthony developed another piece of hardware; one that would tap into the growing power of the internet by letting TV’s stream digital content. In 2008, he launched the Roku box, a $99 device that connected your TV to the internet, with a remote simple enough for your grandmother to use. It’s hard to imagine now, but Anthony initially had a hard time convincing investors and media execs that the Roku—and streaming devices like it—would completely change the way we watch TV. Today, Roku has grown into an expansive media company that creates and distributes content to more than 65 million accounts worldwide.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

‘This is not our customer...’ That was the common justification banks used to deny loans to the entrepreneurs Shivani Siroya supported through her work with the United Nations. While it’s not unusual for a tech startup to raise millions before ever launching a product, small business owners across the globe are all-too-often deemed unworthy of even just a few hundred dollars by traditional financial institutions.  In 2011, Shivani set out to change this at scale. Her company, Tala, has since disbursed more than $3 billion in microloans across India, Kenya, Mexico, and the Philippines. Borrowers simply answer a few questions on a mobile app and — within minutes — they have access to capital. What’s more is that the vast majority of the Tala’s loans are repaid, even with such a frictionless vetting process. This week on How I Built This Lab, Shivani talks with Guy about the lightbulb moments that drove the creation of this vital credit solution and its potential to uplift entire national economies. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

As a newly arrived immigrant from Turkey, Hamdi Ulukaya learned to be resourceful, determined, and even stubborn when he needed to be. All those traits would serve him well as he began to navigate the hairpin turns of building a yogurt business from the ground up. In 2005, Hamdi was running a small feta cheese business in upstate New York when he happened upon a piece of junk mail that would change his life: an ad for an abandoned yogurt factory...$700K, as is. He knew if he could get his hands on it, he could bring a new kind of dairy product to the U.S.—the thick, creamy yogurt he’d grown up eating in the mountains of Turkey. With the help of a local bank, Hamdi bought the factory, and sales grew so quickly that he could barely keep up. A few years later, some bad business decisions nearly pushed the company into bankruptcy, but today, Chobani is one of the most popular yogurt brands in the U.S; and Greek-style yogurt has become a staple of the dairy aisle.  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Our planet is warming, and many parts of the world are not equipped to accurately predict the heat waves, hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires and floods that are becoming more frequent and intense due to the changing climate. Former Israeli Air Force pilot Shimon Elkabetz knows the importance of good weather forecasts — they can literally mean the difference between life and death. In 2016, he co-founded Tomorrow.io to improve the weather data available across the world. This week on How I Built This Lab, Shimon talks with Guy about his company’s work to help businesses, governments and individuals make better decisions in response to increasingly volatile weather. Plus, Shimon recounts some of the challenges he’s faced in fundraising for ‘hard technology’ and stresses the importance of building climate change solutions that generate immediate impact.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When you think of pizza, the first place that comes to mind probably isn’t Finland…or Scotland. But that’s where the two founders of the outdoor pizza oven brand Ooni grew up. In 2012, Kristian Tapaninaho was experimenting with making his own pizza, but he couldn’t get his home oven hot enough to produce an authentic, Neapolitan-style crust. With no background in product design, Kristian decided to design a portable, wood-fired outdoor oven. He used some basic 3D modeling software, enlisted a nearby fence-maker to build a prototype, and raised about $26,000 on Kickstarter. Since launching in 2012, Kristian and his wife Darina have grown Ooni into a $250 million business, accelerated by the home baking boom that happened during COVID. Based in Edinburgh, Scotland, and sold in 90 countries, Ooni has defined a new product category that has helped transform home pizza making.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

“Right now I have approximately 70-ish subscribers,” declared a teenage Marques Brownlee at the beginning of his 100th YouTube video back in 2009. Marques recorded his first of many product reviews earlier that year, after buying his first laptop. Quite simply, he wanted others to have more information about this computer than he did when he bought it. Since then, Marques has grown his channel, MKBHD, into a full-fledged business with more than 16 million subscribers and over 3 billion total views. He’s expanded beyond reviews too, posting interviews with well-known public figures like Kobe Bryant, Bill Gates and Elon Musk. This week on How I Built This Lab, Marques reflects on his journey as a content creator and how he turned a love of tech into a lucrative and sustainable business. Plus, he shares his philosophy for building a strong team – which interestingly enough, is inspired by an octopus...See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Steve Kaufer got the idea for Tripadvisor in 1998 after spending way too many hours online, trying to figure out if a resort in Mexico was really as good as its brochure. When he launched a travel guidance site a few years later, his business plan failed spectacularly because he was trying to partner with other websites, rather than engaging directly with travelers. But Steve eventually arrived at a winning formula: make Tripadvisor available to everyone, aggregate tons of information about hotels and attractions, encourage travelers to add their reviews, and earn a fee from travel companies whenever users clicked to their sites. As the company grew, Steve remained at the helm, leading it through a $210 million sale to IAC, followed by a multi-billion dollar IPO in 2011. Today, Tripadvisor gets over 400 million visitors a month; and Steve—who just stepped down after 22 years—is already thinking about his next business. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Most of us are familiar with rideshare apps at this point. We tap a few buttons on a phone and...voila! A vehicle arrives to take you virtually anywhere you want to go. But what if these vehicles could operate entirely without a human driver? Will we one day live in a world where most cars drive themselves?Kyle Vogt believes that autonomous vehicles will fundamentally change how we get from place to place, and soon! After being part of the team that launched the video game streaming platform Twitch, Kyle charted a new course in 2013 by founding Cruise, which was acquired by General Motors just three years later.This week on How I Built This Lab, Kyle talks with Guy about the process of building a fleet of fully driverless ‘robo taxis’—which are now available for service in San Francisco and coming to more cities across the U.S.. Plus, the two discuss the potential of autonomous vehicles to reduce the alarming number of vehicle-related fatalities and injuries experienced every year.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The story of Bluemercury is packed with business lessons—for starters, it’s always good to have a backup plan. That’s what Marla and Barry Beck discovered in 1999, when they realized their startup online cosmetics business was going nowhere fast. They begged the bank for a second loan so they could invest in a brick-and-mortar store in Washington, D.C., and Bluemercury was born. More lessons followed: as they grew, they distinguished themselves by offering high-end brands and personalized service, and by locating stores in fashionable urban neighborhoods, not malls. Today, Bluemercury is owned by Macy’s, with nearly 200 locations across the U.S. And Barry and Marla—who got married somewhere around the launch of store 4—raised three children along the way.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Commercial air travel has connected humans across the globe in extraordinary ways. This connection, however, comes with a cost: about a billion tons of carbon emissions annually. There’s been major progress in other transportation sectors with cars, trains, trucks, buses, and even ships that run entirely on renewable energy. But for planes, the path to flying carbon-free hasn’t been so clear. Paul Eremenko is on a mission to change that. His company, Universal Hydrogen, works with stakeholders across the airline industry to transition to an abundant clean-burning fuel source. You guessed it – it’s hydrogen!This week on How I Built This Lab, Guy talks with Paul about the massive challenges the industry faces in updating planes for alternative fuel sources. Paul also shares how his long track record in aviation prepared him to launch his own company, which has now raised more than $85 million to lead the charge in transitioning aviation to green hydrogen fuel. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Craig Culver says that when he opened the first Culver’s restaurant in a small Wisconsin town, there were three cars in the parking lot on a good day – and two of them were his family’s. Those early years of selling frozen custard and ButterBurgers were hard, but the business was in Craig’s blood. He grew up working in restaurants run by his parents, and Culver’s was a family affair too—one that was more challenging to run than a typical burger joint because of its large menu, with pot roast, soups, and fried fish. The restaurant wasn’t supposed to grow into a behemoth chain, but it franchised quickly, and today there are nearly 900 across the country. On a per-restaurant basis, it’s one of the most profitable quick service restaurants in the country.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Cassey Ho is the face of Blogilates, best known for its free online workout videos which have more than a billion views on YouTube alone. As impressive as that is, digital content is just one part of Cassey’s multi-million dollar entrepreneurial portfolio, which has grown to include her POPFLEX apparel brand, additional product lines at Target, a Pilates certification program, and more. This week on How I Built This Lab, hear about the risks Cassey took to defy cultural expectations in pursuit of a more fulfilling – and in some ways, forbidden – career, along with her perspective on what it takes to grow a business in the creator economy.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When Brian Lam walked away from a high-profile job at Gizmodo to launch a product review blog, he had no plan for how it would make money. He just knew what he wanted: a user-friendly site with reviews that could be read in a few minutes, with the best products clearly listed, all backed up by meticulous research. But when he launched The Wirecutter in 2011, Brian’s business partners worried that the site’s posts were too brief and too infrequent to build an audience on the web, where clickbait was king. Eventually, Brian’s targeted approach paid off; users trusted his recommendations, he hired more writers, and traffic and revenue grew. In 2016, The Wirecutter was purchased for $30 million by the New York Times, where it was rebranded simply as Wirecutter.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Growing up, Danielle Walker’s family often convened for big meals prepared by her Italian grandmother, Grandma Marge. Back then, Danielle enjoyed a wide variety of food without restriction; but she began experiencing severe abdominal pain in her 20s that ultimately led her to totally transform her diet—cutting grains, lactose, sugar and more. As Danielle found relief in this approach—and realized that others with similar ailments could as well—she began compiling her recipes in an online blog called Against All Grain. Before long, the self-taught chef became a bestselling cookbook author, more recently branching out with her own product lines and cooking courses. This week on How I Built This Lab, Danielle talks with Guy about being an ‘accidental entrepreneur’ as she chronicles her journey to building a multifaceted business centered around healthy eating. Plus, Danielle shares her advice for other creators looking to build an audience and discusses food’s potential to help millions suffering from autoimmune diseases.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Back in 2015, when Mike Salguero set out to buy some grass-fed beef for himself and his wife, he had to meet a farmer in a parking lot, who handed him the beef in a trash bag. Naturally, Mike figured there had to be a better way. At the time, he was running a company that was slowly cratering, and he didn’t know the first thing about sourcing or packaging meat. But he had a hunch that if he could figure it out, he could build a successful home subscription business, shipping humanely-raised meat across the country. Mike connected with farmers and packers, launched a Kickstarter campaign, and began working with food and fitness influencers to promote ButcherBox. Today, without taking on a shred of VC investment or even a bank loan, the company does roughly half a billion dollars in revenue.  See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Artificial Intelligence was once the realm of science fiction. But over the last several years, advances in machine learning and deep neural networks have moved us closer to a reality where computers can learn and solve problems independently, the way a human does. From art and music to medicine and politics, the potential applications of AI are nearly endless, and the technology just keeps getting better.This week on How I Built This Lab, Guy talks with one of the leaders in the field of AI development, Sam Altman. Sam talks about his journey from Stanford dropout and teenage entrepreneur to president of the legendary startup incubator Y Combinator and co-founder of the nonprofit OpenAI. Plus, Sam shares his hopes and fears for the future of AI and how his company is working to ensure it ultimately benefits all of humanity.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Obsessed with TV and passionate about writing, Issa Rae sent an unsolicited script to CBS’s Cosby when she was still in middle school. By her 20's, she realized there was a certain type of character that was absent from the media landscape—a character she would eventually inhabit in her breakout YouTube series, "Mis-Adventures of Awkward Black Girl." From there, Issa created the five-season HBO hit Insecure, but first went through a bruising gauntlet of rejections and reversals as she learned to navigate Hollywood. Today, Issa has built a company—HOORAE Media—which produces her new HBO show, Rap Sh!t, and multiple other TV and film projects. Listen to The Great Creators launching September 20thSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Picture this: you just wrapped a long day of work and you are starving! You open a delivery app and place an order from your favorite restaurant. About an hour later, you get a notification that your meal has arrived. You’re practically salivating as you tear open the bag, and then...a rude awakening — your dinner became cold and soggy in transit. This frustrating and all-too-common experience is exactly what Marc Lore is trying to solve with his latest venture, Wonder.This week on How I Built This Lab, Marc returns to the show to share how Wonder, recently valued at $3.5 billion, has the potential to disrupt the entire food delivery and home dining industry. Plus, Marc offers advice on how to approach big challenges and discusses several other business ideas he’s been cooking up since leaving Walmart last year.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

David Heath and Randy Goldberg saw an opportunity to disrupt a long dormant—and arguably boring sector...socks. They met at a startup in their 20s, each already had their own side hustles before they hatched a plan to launch a business together. Randy and David didn’t initially intend to get into the sock business, but in 2011, David read that socks are the most requested clothing item at homeless shelters. That led them to start a company they called Bombas based on a promise: for each pair of socks a customer bought, another would be donated to the homeless. Within about ten years, their one-for-one start-up turned into a quarter of a billion dollar business that has expanded into sweatshirts, underwear, and t-shirts.Listen to The Great Creators launching September 20thSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Water is all around us–quite literally, there is enough water in the air we breathe to meet all of humanity’s needs and then some. Engineering professor Cody Friesen invented a solar-powered device that captures this vapor and transforms it into drinking water. Cody began manufacturing these ‘hydropanels’ with his Arizona-based company SOURCE in 2014, and today they’re used in more than 50 countries worldwide.This week on How I Built This Lab, Cody talks with Guy about the prevalence of water scarcity in the U.S. and around the globe, and his company’s work to become the world’s first renewable, fully-digitized drinking water utility. Plus, the two discuss how entrepreneurs should be thinking about the growing renewable energy market.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When you consider the risk of doing business, it doesn’t get much bigger than starting a car company: competition is formidable, startup costs are in the billions, and very few people believe you can pull it off. That’s the massive challenge RJ Scaringe walked into in 2009, when he launched his truck and SUV company, Rivian. To add to the risk, RJ wanted to build fully electric vehicles while attracting drivers who’d never bought them, so he knew his trucks had to be fun and sporty: appealing in their own right. Rivian’s journey has taken RJ from an old warehouse in Florida to a massive Midwestern car manufacturing plant; and from years of stealth planning to months of anticipatory buzz from buyers and the industry. Rivian rolled its first trucks off the line in 2021, and is hustling to fulfill tens of thousands of vehicle reservations from excited customers. There have been pivots, sleepless nights, and, of course, multiple supply chain issues, but today, Rivian is valued at $30 billion and is a major player in the electric vehicle industry.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On October 9, 2012, Shiza Shahid’s life changed forever. It was on that day that 15-year-old Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman, capturing the world’s attention. Before long, 22-year-old Shiza found herself leaving her corporate job to join a recovering Malala and her father in launching the Malala Fund, a nonprofit that advocates for girls’ education across the globe. Little did Shiza know, this venture was actually just the beginning of her entrepreneurial journey...This week on How I Built This Lab, Shiza recounts the childhood experiences that forged her commitment to public service and advocacy—ultimately shaping her worldview and leading to her first encounter with Malala. She also discusses her pivot to the for-profit world with Our Place, the cookware company she co-founded in 2019 that’s both profitable and making an impact.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In 2009, Sarah Kauss had a well-paying job in real estate development, but she was itching to do something more. On a hike in Tucson with her mom, she got an idea for a business while swigging warm water from a metal thermos: Why not design a water bottle that kept cold things cold and hot things hot, but was also beautiful to look at? Just six years after launch, S'well reportedly made $100 million, and today, Sarah is especially focused on how the brand can help eliminate plastic waste around the world.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You might not expect a deep friendship to bloom from an argument about favorite authors...in a Miami bar...during spring break. Yet that’s exactly how Greg Solano and Wylie Aronow’s long journey to becoming business partners began... Fast forward more than a decade, and Greg and Wylie are now co-founders of Yuga Labs—the company behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT collection. Since the collection was unveiled in spring 2021, the value of each digital ape has skyrocketed, with celebrities like Paris Hilton, Snoop Dog and Madonna getting in on the action. Within a year of its founding, Yuga Labs received a whopping $4 billion valuation, making it one of the fastest companies ever to achieve unicorn status. This week on How I Built This Lab, Greg and Wylie recount their whirlwind success story in one of their first-ever public interviews. We hear how a shared love of storytelling and online gaming helped spawn the idea for the bored apes; plus, Greg and Wylie tell Guy about the next big endeavor for Yuga Labs: expanding into the metaverse.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

In 1970, George Zimmer was a college graduate with no real job prospects and little direction. That's when his father, an executive at a boy's clothing company, asked him to go on an important business trip to Asia. It was that trip that propelled him into the world of men's apparel. In 1973, the first Men's Wearhouse opened in Houston with little fanfare, but by the mid-80s, George Zimmer managed to carve out a distinct niche in the market—a place where men could buy a good quality suit, at "everyday low prices," along with all the shirts, ties, socks, and shoes they need.With George as the face of the brand, Men's Wearhouse became a multi-billion dollar empire with hundreds of stores across the U.S. But then, in 2013, a bitter battle forced him to give it all up.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Pierre Thiam was robbed within days of arriving in New York City. It was 1989, and he had just traveled to the U.S. from Senegal to study chemistry and physics. This chance incident, however, set Pierre’s life on an entirely different course. Today, he’s a renowned chef, restaurant owner, cookbook author, and co-founder of Yolélé – a company working to introduce the world to an ancient West African grain called fonio.This week on How I Built This Lab, Pierre talks with Guy about his company’s work to circulate this nutrient-dense and drought-resistant food source. Pierre also shares how he overcame cultural norms to embrace his cooking career, and his take on the connection between colonization and the vulnerability of our global food systems.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

As a girl in 1970s London, Jo Malone learned how to make face creams by going to work with her mom at a private skin care clinic. By the time she was in her 20's, Jo was running her own skin care and cosmetics business, which eventually grew to include bath oils, scented candles, and fragrances under the brand Jo Malone London. Jo sold the brand to Estée Lauder in 1999 and then left the business after a life-changing diagnosis. She now has a fragrance company called Jo Loves, where she innovates with new kinds of scents and explores new ways to present them.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Growing up, Andrew Rea dreamed of becoming a Hollywood filmmaker. But the special effects production job he landed after college left him feeling…uninspired. After a series of creative defeats and mounting relationship troubles, his therapist suggested he find a new creative outlet. Andrew decided to make a short cooking video inspired by an episode of Parks and Recreation and uploaded it to YouTube...This week on How I Built This Lab, Guy asks Andrew about his journey from TV and movie buff to YouTube cooking sensation. His channel, Babish Culinary Universe now has nearly 10 million subscribers. Plus, Andrew candidly shares how his struggles with mental health have shaped his career.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.