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.
Reid signed Meghan Trainor against industry consensus, yielding three top-10 hits
“In fact, in 2014, against the instincts of most other record executives, L.A. Signed Meghan Trainor. And within a year, she brought Epic Records three top 10 singles.”
Raz: The Container Store filed bankruptcy and was acquired for $150M
“Soon after, you know, we spoke, the Container Store, which you are not involved with at all anymore, but it announced it was filing for bankruptcy, and then I think a few months ago, it was actually acquired by
Buy Bed Bath & Beyond for about a hundred and fi…”
Raz: Olipop Is Valued at Over $2 Billion
“It's now valued at over two billion dollars, maybe more. That was the last I saw, which was last year.”
Guy Raz: UGG reached its first annual profit of $140,000 in 1989
“By the end of that year, for the first time ever, UGG turns a profit, 140,000 dollars, which is great news.”
Justin's generated $20 million in annual revenue by 2012
“You're doing twenty million a year in 2012”
Guy Raz: High costs in the Bay Area cause contractor shortages, spurring DIY
“There is a shortage of contractors in the Bay Area. It is really hard to find them because, you know, cost of living is high, and contractors, they charge a lot here so a lot more people are doing DIY stuff”
Raz: Chomps aimed at male gym-goers, but found most buyers are moms
“The guys that, that created that brand were really targeting, you know, men who were going to the gym who wanted to, like, hit a protein. The majority of their customers are moms, on-the-go moms, and that's what they started to see very rapidly.”
VMG Partners valued KIND at $45 million in a 2009 investment
“This is VMG, the private equity firm, I believe, that bought a share. I mean, at that point, in 2009, they valued it at forty five million dollars, the business.”
Raz: WeWork co-founder Miguel McKelvey is part owner of American Giant
“Miguel is an owner of, part owner of a brand called American Giant.”
Healy co-funded a Salem biodiesel startup with Willie Nelson using waste oil
“By the way, in the early 2000, Cameron was looking for a way to make sure that all that oil used to make kettle chips didn't go to waste. So he funded a biodiesel startup in Salem that still exists today, and he did it with another old hippie who's also a voca…”
Raz: Osher produced Tony-winning musicals Jersey Boys and Hairspray
“By the way, over the years, John has had a pretty interesting side hustle, backing Broadway musicals. He's actually been listed as a producer on some pretty big hits, including at least two Tony winners for Best Musical, Jersey Boys and Hairspray.”
Raz: Liquid Death launched its billion-dollar brand with a $1,500 video
“You know, Liquid Death launched its brand with a 1500 dollar video.”
Raz: Specialized Almost Went Bankrupt in 2001 Before Adidas-Inspired Turnaround
“Mike Sinyard who founded that company, was struggling in, like, 2002 1001, and almost went bankrupt. And he happened to read an article about Adidas and how Adidas really turned around their business in the United States in part because of a brand Bible.”
Allison Ellsworth is the second Shark Tank contestant to become a Shark
“By the way, Allison is heading back to Shark Tank once again for its new season, but this time she'll be a shark. She's one of just two former contestants to ever appear in that role. The first one was also a guest on this show, Jamie Siminoff of Ring”
Guy Raz: Larry David was paid $10M for his FTX commercial
“Ask Larry David, who got ten million dollars, do an FTX commercial.”
Raz: Prebiotic soda Poppi rebranded four years before selling for $1.8B
“Poppy, which was sold for 1.8 billion dollars, did not start out as Poppy. It started out as like Mother's Earth or something like that. And they only changed it to poppy in 2019, like four years in.”
Raz: Chobani controls roughly 22% of the US yogurt market
“Today, you know, roughly Chobani's got about 22% of the yogurt market in the US.”
Figma filed for an IPO after its Adobe acquisition deal collapsed
“Shortly after we did this interview, and about a year after the deal with Adobe fell through, Figma filed for an IPO.”
Guy Raz: Zumiez's success is driven by obsessive inventory management
“And the secret to the success of that store is inventory management. They're just obsessive about inventory management.”
Raz: Walmart acquired Bonobos for roughly $300 million in 2017
“And then in 2017, the brand was acquired by Walmart for around three hundred million dollars.”
Raz: The perimenopause market is where energy bars were in 2008
“I mean, it's just really starting to explode. It's like where energy bars were in, like, 2008.”
Guy Raz: RXBAR's front-of-pack ingredient transparency transformed the company
“That rebranding on RX bar transformed that company because initially it didn't look like that. It didn't say, you know, four egg whites, three dates, two cashews. But once they did that and Peter Rahal talked about this on our show years ago. It just transform…”
Priority Bicycles built US awareness through boutique and chain hotel partnerships
“Their whole strategy was to work with hotels. There are hotels all over the United States That have priority bicycles. You know, when you want to borrow a bike, they've got like six of them. And so that's how they built awareness.”
Raz: Weee!'s aggressive referral discounts drove profitability in six months
“It cost we a lot of money. It put them in the red for three months, but it, but their customer acquisition as a result of that was so enormous that they became profitable in six months, and they, I think they've been profitable ever since.”
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 → |