Gary Hirshberg
Co-Founder and Chairman, Stonyfield Farm. On 1 show, 3 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutiveinvestorauthor@Gary_Hirshberg ↗LinkedIn ↗hirshberginstitute.com ↗Wikipedia ↗
Hirshberg co-founded Stonyfield Farm in 1983 and served as its longtime CEO, scaling the venture into a major organic yogurt brand. Today, he mentors founders through the Hirshberg Entrepreneurship Institute, invests in regenerative food companies, and authored Stirring It Up: How to Make Money and Save the World.
1shows
3appearances
48statements
10resolved
4supported
1contradicted
40%fully supported
18said about them ↓ Everything Gary Hirshberg said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Hirshberg: Mission drives trial for high-priced, low-margin products
“If you're trying to build loyalty and with a higher priced, lower gross margin item, then mission is your secret to success. That's your way of getting trial, getting reach, and ultimately getting that holy grail of consumer products, which is word of mouth.”
Self-Directed Colleges Are the Best Entrepreneurial Training
“It turns out that it was probably the best training for an entrepreneur that there is, because this is a school... That has no credits, no requirements, no grades. You only pass, matriculate through by contracting and making progress with, ah, individual profe…”
Hirshberg: VCs want friends-and-family rounds so founders cannot walk away
“Venture capitalists the reason they want what they call F and F money first, friends and family money, is because they know that you might, as an entrepreneur, if things get rough, you might just get up and walk away if it's, you know, some Harvard MBA, you kn…”
Hirshberg: Repeat purchases in food CPG always come down to taste
“It's always comes down to taste if it's food. I always said, used to say you could ship the yogurt 3000 miles, but it was the last 18 inches that made all the difference. It has to, because you're not going to get a second taste. If it doesn't deliver on the f…”
Hirshberg: Mission-driven founders fail when ignoring the commercial core
“And, you know, again, this is this sort of, ah, theme, I think, that happens as entrepreneurs with a mission, ah, you know, the brand or the company, sometimes, ah, they forget, right, that that's actually what enables them to get to their platform, so, ah, im…”
The Organic Revolution Requires Proving Profitability
“But if we're gonna be successful with this revolution, I said to the funders who had gotten us there, then we're gonna have to prove that you can actually make money doing it.”
Hirshberg: 'The Last 18 Inches' Drive Consumer Food Demand
“I, you know, I always say we can ship the yogurt 3000 miles, it's the last 18 inches that makes all the difference. You get it in people's mouths, and then they're gonna ask for it.”
Stonyfield Briefly Abandoned Organic Dairy Sourcing To Survive
“At this moment in Stonyfield's life, we briefly departed from organic.”
VCs Want Friends-and-Family Capital So Founders Cannot Walk Away
“Venture capitalists the reason they want what they call F and F money first, friends and family money, is because they know that you might, as an entrepreneur, if things get rough, you might just get up and walk away if it's, you know, some Harvard MBA, you kn…”
Stonyfield's Debt Reached $2.7 Million by Christmas 1989
“Well, by the, by Christmas of 87, you know, running this factory for two months, I can tell you we were already 600,000 dollars in debt. By Christmas of 88, we were 1.9 million dollars in debt. By Christmas of the next year we were 2.7 million dollars in debt.”
Stonyfield Was Funded by 297 Angel Investors After VC Rejections
“What you have to know at the punchline of this story is that I wound up by the end of this period with 297 individual investors. There was no way to find common ground with an institutional investor, right? A venture capitalist. Believe me, I knocked on every …”
Danone Bought 80% of Stonyfield But Left Hirshberg in Control
“The original head of M&A who came to see me said Gary, do you mean to tell me we're going to buy 80% of your company and you'll still be in control? And I said, yes. And the banker and the lawyers and everyone laughed. And, you know, two years later, that's th…”
Hirshberg: Hampshire College is the best training for entrepreneurs
“It turns out that it was probably the best training for an entrepreneur that there is, because this is a school- That has no credits, no requirements, no grades. You only pass, matriculate through by contracting and making progress with individual professors w…”
Hirshberg: Stonyfield cracked retail by having Frisbee teammates demand it
“So in July of 84, I had my 30th birthday at the farm, and my, I had my old Ultimate Frisbee team come up to visit me, most of whom lived in Cambridge, as you might imagine. And I said, look, It's wonderful you've all come. If you want to give me a really good …”
Hirshberg: Getting food into mouths matters more than shipping it
“I, you know, I always say we can ship the yogurt 3000 miles. It's the last 18 inches that makes all the difference. You get it in people's mouths, and then they're gonna ask for it.”
Hirshberg: Stonyfield briefly abandoned organic milk in its early years
“At this moment in Stonyfield's life, we briefly departed from organic.”
Hirshberg: Stonyfield raised from 297 individuals after VCs passed
“And, you know, what you have to know at the punchline of this story is that I wound up by the end of this period with 297 individual investors. There was no way to find common ground with an institutional investor, right? A venture capitalist. Believe me, I kn…”
Hirshberg: Stonyfield controls roughly 80% of the US organic yogurt market
“And, you know, while we're not the leader in Greek, we are the leader in organic. I mean, I think we're something like 80% of organic yogurt in the U.S., so.”
Hirshberg: Saying 'yes' is the most dangerous word for entrepreneurs
“Yeah, I wish I understood that being an entrepreneur is really being a pathological optimist, and the most dangerous word in my vocabulary was yes.”
Stonyfield Launched With a $25,000 Grant From Catholic Nuns
“So Samuel was able to get some Catholic nuns to provide a 25,000 dollar grant.”
Stonyfield Was $75,000 in Debt on Hirshberg's First Day
“And by 11 a.m. That morning, my first day, I calculated that we were 75,000 dollars in the red.”
Stonyfield Became Bread & Circus's Top Yogurt Within a Month
“About a month later, we were her number one selling yogurt. She took us in the other two Bread and Circuses, and off we went.”
Stonyfield Raised $500,000 After Mother-In-Law's $100,000 Loan
“My mother-in-law, excuse me. And I started raising, and I got to about two 75, 300. This is sort of a month or so later, she said, well, I think we can increase, and so she increased to a hundred, and eventually I got across the finish line, got the 500.”
The other half of the tape: Gary Hirshberg's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 17 times in 8 episodes across the shows. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Nicole Bernard Dawes 7Guy Raz 6Danny Snyder 3Matt O'Hayer 1
Statements about Gary Hirshberg, by other people (1)
Dawes: Hirshberg structured Snyder's-Lance deal to retain board control
“Gary Hirshberg was a great mentor to us, and he helped us structure a deal that still effectively gave us control of the board, which allowed us to really still control our destiny. And at this point, we were profitable, you know, so, like, we were a good addi…”
Every mention by year
tap a year for its mentions
How I Built This 17
2026 8 mentions in 2 episodes 4 per episode
2024 4 mentions in 2 episodes 2 per episode
2021 2 mentions in 1 episode
2020 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode
2017 1 mention in 1 episode
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Gary's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| HOW I BUILT THISLEDGER | Co-Founder and Chairman, Stonyfield Farm | 3 | 48 | 40% 4/10 | full record on How I Built This → |