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: Obsessing over copycats can consume and damage a business
“When it comes to the knockoffs and the copycats, I mean, it's gonna happen. I would be really careful not to let it distract you and obsess you, because as we've seen on the show in the past, it can really damage Businesses. TRX, you know, that, that was, they…”
Raz: Businesses overspend on rising CAC instead of customer retention
“So many businesses, and Kurt, you know this, so many businesses are focusing on customer acquisition, and costs are through the roof now. I mean, what used to be shooting fish in a barrel, you're now spending 80, 90, a hundred dollars more on customer acquisit…”
Deckers acquired Hoka for $3 million before growing it to billions
“Deckers also acquired, a shoe that many people will know called Hoka. Yeah, great brand. Acquired that brand for about three million dollars. It's a multi-billion dollar brand.”
Raz: Outsourcing is only viable once product variability and demand become predictable
“And you can really only outsource once the variability of your product is low. You know, in other words, once you're like what people are ordering, the demand is predictable.”
Raz: Franchise expansion typically begins within a 45-mile or one-hour radius
“Their expansion strategy usually begins with one location within 45 miles. So within an hour or so drive.”
Raz: Go full-time when running your startup part-time starts feeling riskier
“When it starts to feel like doing this part-time is riskier, that's when you know. When you start to say to yourself, actually, it's safer for me to jump into this full-time, you will know that.”
Raz: Sustainable creator businesses should earn 80% of revenue from owned shops
“It's actually critical to building a sustainable business, because down the road, you really want, you don't want a fifty-fifty, you want like 80% of your money coming in through the shop, because that's, you own that. You don't, YouTube owns the algorithm, ri…”
Chewy Sells More Pet Supplies in the United States Than Amazon
“I think it's the biggest distributor of pet supplies. I think it's bigger than Amazon when it comes to pet supplies in the U.S.”
Strict capacity limits and thin margins make yoga studios notoriously difficult businesses
“You go to a restaurant, it might be packed, but the margins are thin, and you go to a yoga studio, and it might be packed, but it's just, the capacity is limited. You can only fit a certain number of people in, and they're really hard businesses, unless it's a…”
Raz: Raising Cane's surpassed KFC as third-largest US chicken chain
“This past summer of 2025, Cane's surpassed Kentucky Fried Chicken as the third largest chicken quick service restaurant in the U.S.”
Raz: Method and Tesla won by making green products cool and luxurious
“Method really broke the mold by making it cool and luxurious. Tesla did the same thing with electric cars. They didn't invent electric cars. They just made them so awesome for people that people went to them.”
Guy Raz: Consumers rarely champion a category without a leading brand
“Consumers, they rarely champion a category unless there's a brand to rally behind, right?”
Guy Raz: The power of celebrity endorsements has vastly diminished
“The power of celebrity is vastly diminished today than it was 1015, 20, 30 years ago.”
Guy Raz: CPG brands need $20 million in sales for viable acquisition
“Because to be an acquisition target, you're going to need to hit. Twenty million or more in sales, right?”
Raz: Food startups often need $10M in sales for serious investors
“Fundraising for food is hard. We know that, we hear that on the show all the time, and many businesses won't even get serious investors looking at them until they hit ten million dollars in sales.”
Raz: LeBron James and Michael Phelps paid for WHOOP subscriptions
“He got it on the wrist of Michael Phelps and LeBron James without ever paying them. In fact, LeBron James and Michael Phelps paid him to use it. They paid for a subscription, and the way he did it Was by going to their trainers.”
Guy Raz: Microsoft Will Permanently Retire Skype on May 5, 2025
“Microsoft announced that it would permanently retire Skype and shift its remaining users over to Microsoft Teams. Skype will ring for the last time on May fifth, 2025.”
Flowers Foods plans to acquire Simple Mills for nearly $800 million
“I also want to share that just this month, Simple Mills announced plans to be acquired by Flowers Foods for almost eight hundred million dollars. Caitlin will continue to lead the brand, and if the name of that company, Flower Foods, sounds familiar, it's beca…”
Raz: Paradis Sport should expand into sports bras
“The thing about sports bras, to me, I would say you should go for it, because you've solved, you've already solved the underwear problem, and I would imagine, and again, I'm a guy here, so I don't, you know, know this as intimately as the two of you, but I wou…”
Chick-fil-A leads the fast food industry in sales per square foot
“The most successful quick service restaurant in the world in terms of the yield sales per square foot is Chick-fil-A. They beat everybody. Shake Shack, In-N-Out, McDonald's, even though they don't have as many locations, a typical Chick-fil-A does about eight …”
Raz: Consumers prioritize personal benefits over sustainability missions
“At the end of the day, the vast majority of consumers They just don't care about that. I mean, we wish they would care more, but they don't. They really want to know, what does this do for me?”
Guy Raz: The average age of first-time founders is 39
“Most first-time founders average age is 39, 40.”
Raz: A core audience of 500 loyal content readers acts as force multipliers
“The people who really appreciate it, even if it might just be a thousand people or 500 people, those are your force multipliers. Those are the people who are really going to lean into what you're selling and tell other people about it.”
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 → |