Masters of Scale

About this creator

Masters of Scale is an entrepreneurship podcast about scaling companies, navigating leadership, and learning from experienced founders and executives.

Why they're in the library

Included for clear, credible perspective as entrepreneurship podcast about scaling companies, navigating leadership, and learning from experienced founders and executives.

Showing 461 digests for Masters of Scale.

Founder interviews

Podcast

Human dignity as a driver of scale: Promise CEO Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins

Masters of Scale June 21, 2022


Founder interviews 10
Business models 7
Pricing strategy 6
  • Poor people repay at 93% when given flexible payment plans
  • Dignity-first design means fewer support calls, not warmer feelings
  • Walking out on a corrupt sheriff client saved the company

Work-life balance

Podcast

Above all else, invest in friendship

Masters of Scale June 18, 2022


Work-life balance 7
Identity & self-belief 6
  • Real friends reveal your blind spots and expand your worldview
  • The right friend at the right moment redirects your entire path
  • Helping friends deepens your sense of purpose and belonging

Case studies

Podcast

How Kathryn Finney is building equitable entrepreneurship from the ground up

Masters of Scale June 9, 2022


Case studies 9
Fundraising & VC 8
Business models 6
  • VCs drove up Black founders' valuations — then blamed them for the fallout
  • $100 microgrant turned into $100k in sales; speed beats bureaucracy
  • Fewer than 11 Black women had raised $1M in VC funding as of 2016

Management

Podcast

How Sheryl Sandberg scaled Google and Facebook by breaking plans

Masters of Scale June 7, 2022


Management 9
Long-term planning 8
Delegation 7
  • Why clinging to early plans is the biggest leadership failure at scale.
  • Make people safe to tell you when you're wrong — or they won't.
  • Keep mission constant; break everything else as fast as needed.

Founder interviews

Podcast

How Moderna's network of collaborators enabled the COVID-19 vaccine

Masters of Scale May 31, 2022


Founder interviews 9
Culture building 6
Pivoting 5
  • Bancel's decade-built network let him spot the pandemic weeks before his own team.
  • Moderna designed the COVID vaccine in 10 minutes using mRNA software-like technology.
  • A deliberate two-week delay ensured the vaccine worked for all ethnic groups.

Case studies

Podcast

How a first-time event organiser built a global benefit concert for Ukraine in six weeks

Masters of Scale May 26, 2022


Case studies 10
Management 6
Pivoting 5
  • Cold calls alone secured Pink Floyd, streaming partners, and 100 volunteers.
  • Setting a $10M target — not $3M — was a deliberate tactic to attract bigger names.
  • Shared purpose replaced management: no egos, no friction, fast decisions.

Long-term planning

Podcast

How Moderna built its mRNA platform by treating risk as a discipline

Masters of Scale May 24, 2022


Long-term planning 9
Case studies 7
Management 6
  • Stéphane accepted a 5% success chance because the upside was permanent.
  • Building the mRNA OS first meant saying no to VCs and early IPO.
  • Pharma avoids risk by default — Moderna made risk-taking a cultural principle.

Culture building

Podcast

PwC's $2.4 billion bet on employee choice as a business driver

Masters of Scale May 19, 2022


Culture building 9
Management 8
Business models 7
  • Giving employees radical choice over work drives client performance, not undermines it.
  • Demographic data shows the talent shortage is structural, not a temporary power shift.
  • Playing it safe is the real culture risk — short-term metrics mask long-term erosion.

Founder interviews

Podcast

Bill Ford on refounding a 120-year-old company from the inside

Masters of Scale May 17, 2022


Founder interviews 9
Management 7
Pivoting 6
  • Middle management, not executives, is where change actually dies
  • Ford mortgaged its own blue oval to avoid the 2008 bankruptcy
  • Electrifying the F-150 was a deliberate internal and external signal

Culture building

Podcast

Bill Ford: how a company lifer drives transformation from within

Masters of Scale May 10, 2022


Culture building 9
Founder interviews 7
Vision & mission 6
  • An insider can refound a company — outsiders aren't required
  • Every green initiative needs a business case to silence naysayers
  • Ground-level contacts give leaders the honest truth hierarchy hides

Customer discovery

Podcast

Do things that don't scale: Building Airbnb

Masters of Scale May 3, 2022


Customer discovery 9
MVP & prototyping 8
Vision & mission 5
  • Spend early growth obsessing over a handful of users, not millions.
  • Manually build until it breaks, then automate the most painful step.
  • Design the absurdly perfect experience, then work backward to what scales.

Founder interviews

Podcast

How Chief built a national network for senior executive women

Masters of Scale April 21, 2022


Founder interviews 10
Culture building 6
Pivoting 5
  • Senior executive women lack community — Chief was built to fix that
  • A pandemic that threatened the model tripled community engagement instead
  • Hybrid work is an opportunity for women only if companies act with intention

Founder interviews

Podcast

Running a startup through war: lessons from a Ukrainian founder

Masters of Scale April 14, 2022


Founder interviews 9
Management 7
Cash flow management 6
  • How a strong mission kept a team working through daily bomb sirens
  • Cash reserves and US clients were the financial lifeline in wartime
  • Buying Ukrainian products is a direct, actionable form of support

Hiring & recruitment

Podcast

Five surprising ways to rethink your hiring

Masters of Scale April 12, 2022


Hiring & recruitment 9
Culture building 7
  • Hire for cultural fit and long-term vision, not just immediate availability.
  • Build your own talent by developing generalists into specialized roles over time.
  • Remove geographic barriers to access the world's best candidates, not just local ones.

Founder interviews

Podcast

How Chobani scaled by investing in community and co-ownership

Masters of Scale April 5, 2022


Founder interviews 9
Culture building 8
Bootstrapping 6
  • Chobani hit $1B revenue with zero outside investment
  • Giving equity to 2,000 workers turned employees into co-owners
  • Replicating community culture at a new plant requires starting over

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