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

How J.J. Abrams builds conditions for creative breakthroughs

Masters of Scale June 15, 2021


Founder interviews 10
Culture building 8
Business operating systems 6
  • Structure doesn't kill magic — it gives magic somewhere to land.
  • Lost was greenlit and fully shot in 12 weeks; don't recreate this.
  • Diverse, cross-functional voices — not lone auteurs — make great work.

Case studies

Podcast

How Rent the Runway survived COVID and emerged stronger

Masters of Scale June 10, 2021


Case studies 9
Communication 8
Pivoting 7
  • Sustainability jumped from #15 to the #2 reason customers sign up
  • Pandemic downtime let them quadruple logistics capacity without expanding headcount
  • Organic signups in new cities prove consumer values shifted permanently

Founder interviews

Podcast

How Wendy Kopp built two education networks across 59 countries

Masters of Scale June 8, 2021


Founder interviews 10
Business models 6
  • Sharing questions across a network beats distributing answers from the centre
  • Teach for India outperformed Teach for America by shifting to mindset-first training
  • 74% of global alumni stay in education, becoming the network's self-reinforcing flywheel

Vision & mission

Podcast

Five essential moves for post-pandemic success

Masters of Scale May 29, 2021


Vision & mission 8
Management 7
Resilience & grit 6
  • Shift from survival mindset to growth thinking before crisis fully ends.
  • Tighten mission focus to rally teams and drive alignment decisions.
  • Double down on pre-crisis strengths, not temporary crisis-driven opportunities.

Founder interviews

Podcast

How Alex Rodriguez built a lifelong system of mentors

Masters of Scale May 25, 2021


Founder interviews 9
Management 6
  • Never ask someone to be your mentor — ask one specific question.
  • The mentor–mentee gap is false: the best mentors are still learning.
  • A year-long suspension turned a gladiator into a long-term relationship builder.

Business operating systems

Podcast

Obama on keeping mission constant while tactics evolve at scale

Masters of Scale May 18, 2021


Business operating systems 9
Management 8
Case study 7
  • Transitioning from campaign to presidency is a startup reverse-takeover of General Motors.
  • The ACA was designed as a minimum viable product — a starter home, built to iterate.
  • Healthcare.gov failed due to procurement rules, not incompetence — and fixed it fast.

Case studies

Podcast

How Google's chief health officer ran a global public health platform during COVID

Masters of Scale May 13, 2021


Case studies 9
Processes & SOPs 7
Management 6
  • Google's search defaults and doodles are de facto public health interventions
  • Tech's edge over public health: forecasting forward, not just tracking backward
  • Why herd immunity — not individual vaccination — is the population-level goal

Founder interviews

Podcast

How Obama built the team and mindset to seize a historic moment

Masters of Scale May 11, 2021


Founder interviews 10
Delegation 8
Long-term planning 7
  • Moments choose you — position yourself before the window opens.
  • Horizontal teams with real authority scale faster than top-down ones.
  • Listening to community stories before acting is the highest-leverage move.

Founder interviews

Podcast

Instacart's COVID crucible: scaling, strategy, and the post-pandemic bet

Masters of Scale April 29, 2021


Founder interviews 9
Business models 8
Pivoting 7
  • Demand jumped from 10% weekly to 10% daily — overnight
  • Empowering retailers beats owning the supply chain like Amazon
  • COVID permanently shifted online grocery adoption, not temporarily

Management

Podcast

How to build a team of mentors, with Alex Rodriguez and Reid Hoffman

Masters of Scale April 27, 2021


Management 8
Resilience & grit 6
  • You are the composite of the mentors you build around you.
  • A-Rod's 10-touch rule: reach out ten times before asking for anything.
  • Four deep mentor relationships beat eight shallow ones every time.

Founder interviews

Podcast

Blue Apron's CEO on why a pandemic is not a business model

Masters of Scale April 22, 2021


Founder interviews 10
Long-term planning 7
Culture building 6
  • Why chasing pandemic demand can undermine long-term business health
  • Meal kits cut carbon emissions 25% versus grocery shopping
  • Employee-led voting drives and how Blue Apron closed on election day

Founder interviews

Podcast

How Houzz turned home renovation frustration into a global platform

Masters of Scale April 20, 2021


Founder interviews 10
Business models 8
Community building 6
  • Frustration is the earliest signal that a real, unsolved problem exists.
  • Houzz fused two-sided frustration — homeowners and professionals — into one flywheel.
  • Reversing every personal declaration unlocked capital, scale, and global expansion.

Case studies

Podcast

How Alamo Drafthouse used Chapter 11 bankruptcy to survive the pandemic

Masters of Scale April 15, 2021


Case studies 9
Cash flow management 7
Business structure 5
  • Chapter 11 is restructuring, not closure — the stigma is a misunderstanding
  • Bankruptcy hits like divorce: the emotional toll blindsides most leaders
  • Private full-theater rentals went from survival tactic to 50% of revenue

Management

Podcast

Delta CEO Ed Bastian on leading an airline through pandemic recovery

Masters of Scale April 8, 2021


Management 9
Long-term planning 7
Retention & loyalty 6
  • Blocking middle seats cost nothing — customers paid a premium anyway
  • No furloughs, no pay cuts, yet ranked 7th best US employer mid-pandemic
  • Sustainable aviation fuel covers only one day of Delta's annual needs

Customer discovery

Podcast

How to teach your customer what they need to learn

Masters of Scale April 5, 2021


Customer discovery 9
Branding 7
Pivoting 6
  • Launch the product customers will trust, not the one they think they want first.
  • Where you place your product signals everything—meat case beats alternative aisle.
  • Listen to customer objections even when the science proves them wrong.

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