May 7, 2020 · 29m · how-i-built-this
How I Built Resilience: Live with Christina Tosi and Gary Erickson & Kit Crawford
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
Host Guy Raz interviews Milk Bar founder Christina Tosi alongside Clif Bar co-CEOs Gary Erickson and Kit Crawford to explore how business leaders navigate crisis through rapid operational pivots, empathetic management, and community support.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Guy holds 28.1% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Guy as informed peer 2.3 Guest teaching 2.3 Guest disagreement 0.0 Guy pushing back 0.0
speaking balance: gold is Guy, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 9:05 Playful correction on standard kitchen operations
In a completely collaborative episode, Tosi lightly clarifies that kitchen equipment already enforces social distance naturally rather than requiring drastic physical layout changes.
Hardest push from Guy ▶ 9:02 Inquiring about physical kitchen constraintsGuy presses gently on how commissaries can possibly operate safely under strict pandemic lockdown measures.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 19:32 Erickson's Wendell Berry leadership frameworkErickson educates the audience and host on crisis management by advising leaders not to fear asking questions that currently lack definitive answers.
Guy holds their own ▶ 0:30 Raz's framing of Milk Bar's origin during the 2008 recessionGuy synthesizes Milk Bar's corporate trajectory and recession-tested instincts to set up the theme of entrepreneurial resilience.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Guy as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Guy pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NPR Podcast Survey Announcement | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Guy opens the resilience special with context on Milk Bar's founding during the 2008 recession, then asks how Tosi is coping in Manhattan. Tosi shares an empathetic account of furloughing staff and shifting focus to e-commerce. | |
| Kitchen Safety Protocols and Handmade Masks | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Guy references their previous 2019 interview and relays an audience question regarding mental health during furloughs. Tosi openly discusses her coping mechanisms, including morning mourning walks and keeping team morale up with handmade masks. | |
| Navigating Revenue Loss, Grocery Expansion, and Uncertainty | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | Guy asks directly about revenue decline across Milk Bar's footprint. Tosi details the financial reality, grocery expansion into Whole Foods and Amazon, and the discipline of accepting lack of control during crisis. | |
| Daily Instagram Baking Club and Community Connection | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Guy highlights Tosi's popular daily Instagram Baking Club. Tosi explains how ditching polished production for raw, daily connection provided structure and solace for both herself and viewers. | |
| Long-Term Resilience and Reframing Adversity | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Guy asks how Tosi hopes this period shapes the long-term resilience of her company. Tosi shares her father-in-law's philosophy that 'adversity is a terrible thing to waste' and discusses setting strict personal boundaries. | |
| Clif Bar Operations, Demand Surge, and Product Donations | 3 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Guy transitions to Clif Bar founders Gary Erickson and Kit Crawford, inquiring about manufacturing continuity and sudden demand spikes. Erickson explains how their bars became a staple donation for healthcare staff. | |
| Crisis Leadership, Attentiveness, and Swift Action | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | Guy prompts Erickson on leadership advice during unprecedented disruption. Erickson quotes Wendell Berry on asking questions that have no current answers and stresses rapid decision-making. | |
| Supply Chain Monitoring and Testing the Five Bottom Lines | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | Guy asks about supply chain exposure for raw bar ingredients. Crawford and Erickson outline their morning COVID-19 task force and describe how the crisis is putting their five bottom lines philosophy to the ultimate test. | |
| Giving Back on a Smaller Scale and Personal Gestures | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Guy relays audience questions regarding how smaller entities can contribute and how leaders maintain team morale. Crawford highlights small personal acts of kindness and intentional check-ins before Guy wraps up the show. |
Statements from this episode (10)
Christina Tosi Furloughed Half of Milk Bar's Staff Early in Pandemic
“Pretty early on, about three or four weeks ago we had to furlough half of our team.”
Christina Tosi's Family Handmade Custom Face Masks for Milk Bar Employees
“My mom and my aunt, who, like, make all of our headscarves, I said, hey, if we get you every single person's name and their color preference or what have you, will you make us face masks? Because who we are is still the same. How we might be feeling is differe…”
Tosi: Working in a kitchen tests mental health and self-knowledge
“When you choose working in a kitchen as a profession, it really does test your mental health. It tests everything you know about yourself.”
Christina Tosi: E-Commerce Cannot Offset Milk Bar's Lost Retail Margins
“Online? They're totally different margins. So even where we can earn back some of what we've lost in stores no matter how far we go online, our margin structure is still really in a tricky place.”
Christina Tosi Expanded Milk Bar Products Into Whole Foods and Amazon
“We just launched Into Whole Foods and I think Next Week on Amazon.”
Christina Tosi: Crisis Marketing Demands Unproduced, Human Connection Over Polish
“Like, I think we can do better, but in a really funny way, better means more human, and better means less produced, and better means making a commitment to something, to people, to doing something every day, because I think our reality is so shattered, and how…”
Christina Tosi Realized Constant Hustle Underperformed Protecting Her Health and Time
“I was traveling around like a crazy person and doing all these things because I thought that is what being someone committed to their business, being someone that was
Driven and successful and hardworking looked like.
And I'm realizing that I left so much on t…”
Gary Erickson: Clif Bar Donated 6.6 Million Bars During Early Pandemic
“So far, we've given out in the first part of March, 3.6 million bars to food banks and healthcare workers and frontline. And then we're on another, we're on the second round. We're now committed another three million.”
Gary Erickson: Waiting Three Days to Make Crisis Decisions is Fatal
“And then as soon as you can take some action and don't sit on things because we don't have time to sit on things. We've been making decisions where we have to act now or tomorrow. And if we wait three days, sorry, we're screwed. So Adapt and take some action.”
Gary Erickson: The Pandemic Fully Tested Clif Bar's Five-Bottom-Line Business Model
“This is the first time that our business model is put to kind of a full test. Like, it's easy when you're like, not easy, but, so we have this five bottom lines business model, you know, sustaining our business, our brands, our people, our community, and our p…”