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.

Long-term planning

Podcast

Marc Andreessen: six insights on timing for entrepreneurs

Masters of Scale January 4, 2022


Long-term planning 9
Identity & self-belief 6
  • Timing beats funding, hiring, and competition as your biggest risk.
  • Good ideas that look bad are the only ones worth pursuing.
  • Open-mindedness declines naturally — founders must actively fight it.

Case studies

Podcast

How Barack Obama built the right team to seize his moment

Masters of Scale December 21, 2021


Case studies 10
Delegation 8
Vision & mission 7
  • Why being two years early beats being first at the peak
  • Flat teams and capped salaries outran better-funded rivals
  • Listening to community stories — not policy — won every race

Vision & mission

Podcast

Leading a retail brand through pandemic disruption: lessons from Crate & Barrel's CEO

Masters of Scale December 16, 2021


Vision & mission 9
Supply chain 8
Branding 7
  • Flexibility over control drove record growth during peak COVID uncertainty
  • Crate & Barrel was rebooted from a nostalgia brand into a purpose-led home retailer
  • Labour disruption rivals supply chain disruption — trust is the only fix

Founder interviews

Podcast

GoFundMe CEO Tim Cadogan on scaling generosity and asking for help

Masters of Scale December 9, 2021


Founder interviews 9
Communication 7
Processes & SOPs 6
  • People underestimate others' willingness to help them by half.
  • For-profit structure delivers 97 cents of every dollar to beneficiaries.
  • Organising a campaign multiplies your giving impact by 20–25x.

Pivoting

Podcast

How Paul Polman rebuilt Unilever by redrawing its boundaries

Masters of Scale December 7, 2021


Pivoting 9
Culture building 7
Pricing strategy 5
  • Dropping quarterly reporting sent shares down 8% — then built a decade of growth.
  • Purpose without boundary change is a soapbox speech, not a transformation.
  • Making every worker a shareholder shifted culture faster than any values program.

Founder interviews

Podcast

Reid Hoffman on AI, the metaverse, great resignation, and big tech

Masters of Scale November 22, 2021


Founder interviews 9
Business operating systems 8
Management 6
  • Why engagement metrics — not greed — explain Facebook's real problem
  • Most tech questions aren't 'if' but 'when' — trailing is often right
  • The great resignation exposes a broken employer-employee honesty contract

Founder interviews

Podcast

How Aurora James turned a single Instagram post into $10 billion for Black-owned businesses

Masters of Scale November 18, 2021


Founder interviews 10
Pivoting 7
Business models 6
  • Why a $1M donation isn't enough — shelf space is the real commitment
  • Contracts and quarterly audits turn pledges into durable economic change
  • A $680 average order dropped to $79 overnight — and the pivot that saved the business

Management

Podcast

How to build a board that navigates your company to scale

Masters of Scale November 16, 2021


Management 8
Communication 7
Long-term planning 5
  • The wrong board member breaks companies faster than the right one saves them.
  • Walkabout board meetings replace decks with honest, peer-witnessed desk conversations.
  • Board diversity is a strategic radar advantage, not a compliance checkbox.

Founder interviews

Podcast

How Peloton navigates safety recalls, supply chains, and societal pressure

Masters of Scale November 4, 2021


Founder interviews 10
Business models 8
Supply chain 7
  • Challenges fuel Peloton's culture more than pandemic tailwinds ever did
  • Hardware margin hits absorbed by subscription lifetime value
  • Business leaders filling the gap where governments are failing

Founder interviews

Podcast

A masterclass in crowdsourcing with Luis von Ahn

Masters of Scale October 19, 2021


Founder interviews 9
Iteration & feedback loops 7
Business models 6
  • Perfect mission alignment is the foundation—your crowd's motivations must match yours, not conflict with them.
  • Find Goldilocks problems: tasks too complex for computers, simple enough for humans to complete in 5-10 seconds.
  • Transparency and legal clarity about how you use crowdsourced effort prevent resentment and build lasting contributor commitment.

Communication

Podcast

How the US Olympic Committee navigates crisis, culture, and institutional change

Masters of Scale October 14, 2021


Communication 9
Culture building 8
Management 6
  • Why CEOs must lead through decisions that won't keep everyone happy
  • Sport's power dynamics make sexual misconduct uniquely dangerous — and fixable
  • The 2028 LA Games is the USOPC's ESG moment to set global standards

Business models

Podcast

How Care.com used data at every stage to scale

Masters of Scale October 5, 2021


Business models 9
Case studies 8
Customer discovery 7
  • Cheap, scrappy data beats expensive surveys at every early stage.
  • Your personal problem is a starting point, not a scale blueprint.
  • Serving both sides of a marketplace is a business imperative, not charity.

Founder interviews

Podcast

Scaling tech responsibly: Sridhar Ramaswamy on search, ads, and monopoly power

Masters of Scale September 30, 2021


Founder interviews 10
Business models 8
Blue ocean strategy 7
  • Ad-funded search structurally serves advertisers, not users.
  • 1% market share is enough to build a profitable subscription search business.
  • Companies at government scale are autocratic — and need specialist regulators.

Case studies

Podcast

How Indra Nooyi built a PepsiCo where talent could thrive

Masters of Scale September 28, 2021


Case studies 9
Culture building 8
Hiring & recruitment 6
  • Why transplanting talent into the wrong culture always fails
  • Spinning out Yum! Brands freed restaurant talent to thrive
  • Writing to executives' parents unlocked loyalty no perk could buy

Management

Podcast

Leading a college through COVID, racial reckoning, and reinvention

Masters of Scale September 23, 2021


Management 8
Case studies 6
Vision & mission 5
  • Preparation before a crisis hits is what makes rapid response possible
  • Black women's businesses are the most underfunded — Spelman built a center to fix that
  • Slow, broad consultation produces decisions that hold when tested under pressure

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