May 21, 2018 · 45m · how-i-built-this
Bob's Red Mill: Bob Moore
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of How I Built This, Bob Moore recounts how he overcame devastating financial failure and a catastrophic arson fire to build Bob's Red Mill into a hundred-million-dollar whole-grain empire, ultimately transferring company ownership to his employees.
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 32.8% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Guy as informed peer 0.4 Guest teaching 0.8 Guest disagreement 0.1 Guy pushing back 0.0
speaking balance: gold is Guy, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 19:55 Bob punctures the seminary romanticism
When Guy Raz asks if seminary fulfilled all his dreams and wishes, Bob directly shuts down the romantic premise with a blunt 'No' and explains the grueling reality of learning ancient languages.
Hardest push from Guy ▶ 28:57 Guy presses on whether fire was a sign to quitGuy Raz probes whether watching the entire mill burn down felt like an unmistakable sign to pack it in and retire rather than rebuild from scratch.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 38:15 Biblical foundation of whole grainsBob quotes Genesis 1:29 from memory and explains analyzing it across 14 translations and the original Hebrew to establish the theological basis for whole grain nutrition.
Guy holds their own ▶ 33:10 Guy recognizes the Anaheim expoGuy Raz jumps in to identify and validate the Anaheim natural food event as the famous Natural Products Expo before Bob even names it.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Guy as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Guy pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Teenage Responsibility at the May Company | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Bob reflects warmly on his youth, taking on department responsibility at age 16 and buying a gas station after his father's sudden death. Guy Raz provides gentle, supportive narrative prompts. | |
| Relocation to Mammoth Lakes and Business Failure | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Bob describes losing all their savings after opening a gas station in Mammoth Lakes and having to sleep on a kitchen floor in Sacramento. Guy listens empathetically without challenging. | |
| The Life-Changing Discovery of George Woodbury's Book | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Bob details discovering George Woodbury's book on restoring a watermill and collecting 19th-century millstones. Guy asks if people thought Bob was losing his mind, which Bob politely dismisses. | |
| Opening Moore's Flour Mill in Redding | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Bob describes opening Moore's Flour Mill in Redding and educates Guy on different types of wheat, including durum, red, and soft white wheat. | |
| Retirement, Seminary, and an Unplanned Discovery | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | When Guy asks if seminary fulfilled all his romantic hopes, Bob immediately counters with a blunt 'No' and explains the difficulty of learning biblical languages before stumbling upon an old mill in Milwaukie. | |
| Mid-Episode Break and Rebuilding Teaser | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Guy contextualizes the mid-1970s health food wave while Bob describes getting local TV coverage and landing Fred Meyer supermarkets. | |
| The Devastating 1988 Arson Fire | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Bob recounts the harrowing 1988 arson fire and guiding firefighters to cut through the wall to save his antique quartz millstones. | |
| Duty to Employees and the Resolve to Rebuild | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Guy asks whether the fire felt like a sign to quit, and Bob shares how overhearing his employee's wife worry about their home mortgage solidified his commitment to rebuild. | |
| Emergency Relocation and Family Support | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Bob explains using a small Anaheim trade show booth to secure national distributor relationships. Guy demonstrates familiarity with the Natural Products Expo. | |
| Rejecting Corporate Buyouts for Employee Ownership | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Guy asks about revenue milestones and giving away company ownership. Bob explains refusing buyouts because corporate acquirers inevitably change company culture, choosing an ESOP instead. | |
| Lifelong Work Ethic, Faith, and Genesis 1:29 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Bob recites Genesis 1:29 in original Hebrew and explains that his entire whole-grain business philosophy originated from the first page of scripture. | |
| How You Built That: Inventing the DeskView Window Desk | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | In the How You Built That segment, Mike Bolos and Jason Grohowski recount creating the DeskView window-mounted desk and overcoming a critical suction lever failure in Singapore. |
Statements from this episode (14)
Bob Moore bought a Los Angeles Mobil gas station for $6,000
“Oh, it was about 6000 dollars, and I can tell you that the excitement of having my own business, it, it's still with me.”
Bob Moore's Mammoth Lakes gas station failed within one year
“There was already a shell station up there that had been there for years and years and years, and everybody loved them and went there for their gas and for everything else, and frankly, a guy by the, almost one year to the day, we just ran out of money”
Bob Moore hit rock bottom relying on charity for Sacramento housing
“We didn't have any furniture, so that was about the lowest point in our life when we were living on somebody else with the three boys,”
Bob Moore salvaged 19th-century stone mills slated for demolition
“Dewey was such a help. He found me a mill that was to be torn down in Fayetteville, North Carolina. So I ended up, for not a whole lot of money, With my garage stacked full of old, very ancient stone mills dated, 1870, 1860, 1880.”
Bob Moore personally created the 10-grain cereal recipe still used today
“Oh, actually, we, I created the 10 grain cereal that we're using now.”
Bob Moore kept his JCPenney day job two years after launching
“I kept my job at Penny's for two years, and Charlie, of course she worked the store and talked with people, and she was a great believer in whole grains, and it was all very nice.”
Bob Moore retired at 50 to study biblical languages at seminary
“I had an intense desire to learn to read the Bible in the original languages, Hebrew and Koine Greek, and, ah, we did a little scouting about and found here that Portland, where I am right now, was one of the greatest spots for seminaries, and, ah, we, ah, enr…”
Bob Moore bought an old Portland mill while attending seminary
“So, well, basically I bought the thing and changed my entire life.”
Fred Meyer offered to stock Bob's Red Mill in 44 stores
“What else came in was we had a group of markets here called Fred Meyer One Stop Shopping Center, and their buyer came in, he was a vice president, and he said, Mr. Meyer would like to open, ah, health food stores in all 44 of his stores, and he'd like to put y…”
Firefighters tactically saved all three antique stone mills during 1988 arson
“They just whacked a big square hole in it, and he planted one of the firemen there on the ground with a fire hose aimed through the hole, and for the entire time of the fire, ah, he kept, ah, direction inside the mill room, which actually saved all three mills…”
Corporate acquirers always promise operations won't change, but everything changes
“Even though they always tell you that everything's gonna stay the same, but everything changes, and I didn't want my life to change.”
Bob's Red Mill generates well over $100 million in annual revenue
“It's well, well over a hundred million dollars.”
At almost 90, Bob Moore still works 12-hour days
“Here I am at almost 90. I get up at six every morning. I go down to my own store my own restaurant, and have cereal. I don't like anything besides hot cereal, cooked cereal, and then I, well, I get into bed a little bit early, but I work till five or six every…”