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.

Scaling infrastructure

Podcast

How Chewy scaled operations and trust during COVID-19

Masters of Scale April 25, 2020


Scaling infrastructure 9
Communication 8
Case studies 6
  • Holiday-level demand arrived unannounced — with no playbook to follow
  • Infrared sensors and a daily SWAT team kept 13,000-person operations running
  • Seven repeat purchases needed to turn pandemic shoppers into permanent customers

Case studies

Podcast

How Nextdoor mobilised neighbourhoods during COVID-19

Masters of Scale April 24, 2020


Case studies 9
Iteration & feedback loops 6
  • Nextdoor saw help conversations surge 262% in weeks
  • A kindness nudge caused 25% of flagged posts to be rewritten
  • Local businesses gain more reach on Nextdoor than Instagram

Founder interviews

Podcast

How US Digital Response mobilised 4,000 tech volunteers to fix government infrastructure

Masters of Scale April 23, 2020


Founder interviews 9
Business models 8
Processes & SOPs 7
  • A Google Form launched in 48 hours; 1,000 volunteers signed up within days.
  • Governments can stand up digital services in a day during crisis — so why years in peacetime?
  • Mobile-first benefit forms cut application time from an hour to seven minutes.

Pivoting

Podcast

Lyft's crisis playbook: keeping ride share running during COVID-19

Masters of Scale April 16, 2020


Pivoting 9
Communication 8
Processes & SOPs 6
  • Transportation is the root of economic activity — crisis amplifies that.
  • 120,000 drivers joined a task force in one day to fuel essential rides.
  • Daily founder AMAs drove employee engagement to an all-time high.

Crisis leadership

Podcast

Crisis leadership and the pivot: Ellen Kullman on leading through uncertainty

Masters of Scale April 14, 2020


Crisis leadership 10
Pivoting 8
Case studies 7
  • Four crisis principles distilled from leading DuPont and Carbon through chaos.
  • Carbon went from Adidas shoe soles to 20,000 medical face shields per week.
  • Why short-term earnings focus left industries dangerously without surge capacity.

Founder interviews

Podcast

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky on leading through the COVID-19 crisis

Masters of Scale April 13, 2020


Founder interviews 10
Communication 8
Fundraising & VC 6
  • Airbnb's IPO was days away when COVID made it irrelevant
  • How $250M in host payouts got approved without a financial model
  • Crisis forced Airbnb back to its founding purpose: human connection

Founder interviews

Podcast

How DonorsChoose pivoted fast to serve teachers during COVID-19

Masters of Scale April 7, 2020


Founder interviews 9
Pivoting 7
MVP & prototyping 5
  • Three-week sprint rebuilt the platform to ship supplies to students' homes
  • Crises make donors more generous, not less — confirmed by 2008 recession data
  • 75% of donations come from strangers, not teachers' own networks

Founder interviews

Podcast

Crisis data reveals the mental health impact of COVID-19

Masters of Scale April 2, 2020


Founder interviews 10
Management 7
Data & analytics 6
  • COVID-19 triggered two distinct mental health waves, not one
  • Volunteer surge kept NPS rising even as volume doubled
  • No OpenTable for social services — fragmentation costs lives

Founder interviews

Podcast

Hourly workers as the economic backbone during COVID-19

Masters of Scale March 31, 2020


Founder interviews 9
Long-term planning 8
Management 6
  • 552 employees to 7 in 12 days — and zero revenue.
  • Stimulus looks like relief when you can't even file for unemployment.
  • Long-termism means patient capital wins where microwave capitalism fails.

Founder interviews

Podcast

Leading through crisis: Reid Hoffman on humanity, survival, and opportunity

Masters of Scale March 26, 2020


Founder interviews 10
Management 8
Cash flow management 6
  • Why humanity first is a leadership strategy, not a distraction
  • Accept some companies will die — then take the right risks
  • Crisis forces experiments in remote work, education, and government

Communication

Podcast

Danny Meyer on laying off 2,000 employees during a crisis

Masters of Scale March 24, 2020


Communication 9
Vision & mission 7
  • Laying off 2,000 people to save their jobs — the paradox explained
  • Restaurant margins are 3–10%; fixed costs don't pause when revenue disappears
  • A single pregnant employee's email reshaped the entire relief fund strategy

Founder interviews

Podcast

How Wences Casares built trust to bring Bitcoin to the masses

Masters of Scale February 27, 2020


Founder interviews 10
Business models 7
Hiring & recruitment 6
  • Growing up in Argentina where savings vanished three times shaped everything.
  • Underground vaults and armed guards made a digital currency feel safe.
  • Reaching the second billion users requires being there, not reading about them.

Business models

Podcast

Be a platform: building virtuous cycles for scale

Masters of Scale February 13, 2020


Business models 9
Case studies 7
Culture building 5
  • Open your business to third-party developers and watch everyone win together
  • Shopify waited nine years before developers earned more than the platform itself
  • Silicon Valley underestimated retail, giving Shopify years to build unnoticed

Culture building

Podcast

Netflix's Reed Hastings on building a culture that scales

Masters of Scale February 6, 2020


Culture building 9
Hiring & recruitment 8
Business operating systems 5
  • Over-processing every mistake builds a workforce of rule-followers, not thinkers
  • Netflix's public Culture Deck filters out wrong-fit candidates before they apply
  • The keeper test: would your manager fight to keep you if you tried to leave?

Identity & self-belief

Podcast

Friendship as a path to becoming your best self

Masters of Scale January 13, 2020


Identity & self-belief 8
Motivation 5
  • Friendships expose blind spots you cannot see alone and reshape your identity
  • The people you befriend teach uncomfortable truths about who you are
  • Real friends give lasting gifts that guide how you live your entire life

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