Guy Raz
Host and Creator, How I Built This. On 1 show, 789 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
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Guy Raz is a journalist and podcast creator who hosts NPR and Wondery's How I Built This. He is also a co-founder of Tinkercast and previously hosted the TED Radio Hour.
1shows
789appearances
315statements
241resolved
206supported
9contradicted
85%fully supported
6said about them ↓ Everything Guy Raz said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Raz: Consumer luxury appeal matters more than sustainability claims right now
“I'm not convinced that eco-friendly and sustainable and better for the planet actually matter as much. I actually think right now, the, what matters to especially your kind of consumer is like the person who buys fewer things but better things. Like that's, in…”
Guy Raz predicts AI podcasts will be profitable within five years
“In, in, within five years, AI generated podcasts will be, they already are pretty good. They will be so good that people will make money out for them, and my value will probably be going, doing things live.”
Guy Raz: Saturated markets do not exist when a brand is strong
“I don't believe in saturated markets. I believe in really good branding”
Guy Raz: Older Founders Have a Higher Rate of Startup Success
“There's a lot of evidence to show that late Sort of entrepreneurs who are older, not late, but older, have a much higher rate of success because they come to the table with a lot of experience”
Food Investors Now Demand $50M To $100M In Sales For Acquisitions
“You know, what I'm hearing from investors right now in the food space is they're waiting, they're really looking for brands to hit 50, really a hundred million dollars in sales. You know, a couple years ago, it was 20. If a brand hit twenty million dollars in …”
Guy Raz: On is the first brand to challenge Nike and Adidas
“It's the first, really the first shoe brand to challenge the dominance of Nike and Adidas, certainly with running.”
Guy Raz: The female motocross market is too narrow to scale
“Female motocross as a market is too narrow, ultimately, and I'm going to, I want you to listen to our episode that we did on Black Diamond, the now Sports company, but it started out as a brand just for mountain climbers. That wasn't enough to build and scale …”
Guy Raz: How I Built This rarely books founders under 30
“This is why we very rarely have guests on the show who are under 30, because not, not that they're not smart or interesting, even if they made hundreds of millions of dollars, it's just, You can't buy time. You can't buy, like, life experience, and so we often…”
Raz: Claims of 'authenticity' in marketing usually indicate the exact opposite
“I think that, that the more it's used, the less actually authentic something or someone is. And you often see this on social media where people say, be your most authentic self. And I think to myself,
You're standing in front of a camera, and you are acting, a…”
Raz: Consumers buy founder-led products for their effectiveness, not founder likability
“Very few people bought Spanx because they loved Sarah Blakely. She's lovable and terrific, but that's not why people bought the product. They bought it because it was really effective. So the, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter whether Allison is interes…”
Guy Raz: A social mission does not sell products like quality does
“A lot of brands really push their social mission, and I'm not convinced that that sells product. I think what sells a product is a good product.”
Raz: Startups cannot build viable businesses on single niche gadgets
“Down the road, they're going to have to create a product line. You can't, right, you can't build a business on just this one niche product. They're going to have to think of their brand as shaving across the board”
Guy Raz: Surfing helmet adoption will mirror skiing within 10 to 20 years
“Yeah, and I've seen it more and more in California. I see more and more people wearing helmets, and I think in 1020 years, it's just, we're gonna look back and be like, people didn't wear helmets surfing? That was, it's like skiing.”
Raz: Giving up 50% equity to an experienced partner is worth it
“Even, even if she gives up half of the business, it's worth it because this is really a turning point. And if you find the right person who understands the opportunity here, I mean, this is a, and you know, ice cream is a Pretty crowded space”
Raz: Rivian is the current gold standard for electric trucks
“Tesla has a car and Ford has one, but they really are kind of the gold standard for electric trucks at the moment.”
Exclusive Whole Foods distribution caps a CPG brand's revenue at $12 million
“And just being in Whole Foods nationally, maybe you can grow to, like, seven, maybe 10, maybe twelve million dollars in annual revenue, but, like, you're gonna max out.”
Raz: Title Nine donated $1M directly to U.S. Women's National Team players
“By the way, earlier this year, the company wrote the biggest check in its thirty-two-year history, one million dollars to the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team, just to pay their players more money so they'd get a little closer to making what the male soccer p…”
Guy Raz: The United States has too many elections and unwieldy ballots
“I think some people might totally disagree with me and want to, you know, bring up their pitchforks, but I think we have too many elections. I mean, I live in California And if you look at the ballot in California, it's really, really unwieldy. I mean, there a…”
Raz: Expanding news access failed to make political debates more rational
“A lot of journalists are committed to the idea of spreading information and truths
with the hope that the more people know those things and understand them, the better the national conversation will be, and the more engaged people will be, and the more ration…”
Raz: Blue-collar workers work harder than any Silicon Valley billionaire
“Somebody working on a construction site works harder than anybody in Silicon Valley. Somebody waiting tables works harder than any billionaire, because it's a really hard job. So hard work alone isn't enough, but it is important and it is a factor.”
Raz: Bumble rejected a $450M acquisition offer from Match Group
“According to Forbes magazine, Bumble turned down an acquisition offer of four hundred and fifty million dollars this past August from the Match Group.”
Over 200,000 riders deleted Uber in 2017, causing a Lyft business spike
“Kalanick has since left that group, but before that happened, more than 200,000 riders deleted their Uber accounts, and all of that has led to a spike in business for Lyft.”
Raz: Retiring baby boomers sell businesses cheaply and offer mentorship
“A lot of them want to sell their business, and many of them want to sell their businesses for a relatively small amount of money. Sometimes are also willing to mentor whoever buys it, and so there are some really interesting opportunities out there.”
Raz: Virality is borrowed attention; build brands around feelings, not products
“Virality is borrowed attention, right? And so the question is, and it's a good question is how do you, it's not how do you maintain that momentum? You won't be able to get a hundred and ninety seven million views again and again and again. But it's how do you …”
The other half of the tape: Guy Raz's own voice is left out of every number here. 6 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →
Statements about Guy Raz, by other people (6)
Lopez: AI audio flood will increase the value of trusted human hosts
“And ultimately, the people who are afraid that AI is going to create an influx of so many low quality and cheap alternatives to actual real voices, I think what they're not seeing is that in that environment, if that environment does happen, the value of a con…”
Grant: Founders trained to think scientifically generated 40x more revenue
“Over the next year, on average, the entrepreneurs who had been trained to think like scientists, randomly assigned, brought in more than 40 times the revenue of the control group. That is a staggering effect. And the major mechanism behind it is they were more…”
Vaynerchuk: Valuable content relies on either expertise or escapism
“I think about two E's a lot, Guy. Expertise or escapism. So if somebody's listening right now, two things that have always worked to Guy's question is, do you have expertise in what you're talking about? And you have to have humility here and self-awareness. L…”
Joel Clark projected Kodiak Cakes would surpass $200 million in 2020 revenue
“Yeah, we should go over that this year.”
Noom precursors faced two years of rejections and dwindled to $2,700
“After two years of straight, like getting a no from all the NJ investors or VCs or even friends, It became clear. And the reality was, Guy, that we didn't have much money left in the bank. I remember we had, like, 2700 dollars”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Guy'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 | Host and Creator, How I Built Thishost | 789 | 315 | 85% 206/241 | full record on How I Built This → |