Masters of Scale

CEO James Daunt has now rescued two iconic bookstore chains: Barnes & Noble and Waterstones. He joins host Jeff Berman to discuss the turnarounds, plus how bookstores are preparing for an onslaught of AI-written content, his BookTok strategy, and why local control is the key to making great bookstores. 

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Few leaders have a better real-time read on how AI is actually reshaping the workforce than Hayden Brown. As CEO of Upwork, the platform where 18 million freelancers meet the businesses that need them, she sees what the monthly jobs report can't: which skills are surging, which jobs are quietly disappearing, and why 23% of businesses that moved work to AI are already bringing humans back. Brown joins Rapid Response to share what sh...

Is it possible for us to ever wholeheartedly trust a machine the way we would a human? According to Charles Duhigg, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author of The Power of Habit and Supercommunicators: How to Unlock the Secret Language of Connection, the answer is no. And that’s what stops us from being able to emotionally connect with AI chatbots.

In this episode of Pioneers of AI, host Rana el...

Tom Freston is a cofounder of MTV and former CEO of Viacom. He joined host Jeff Berman to dig into the wild stories and meaningful lessons from his life as an unconventional corporate leader. Freston reveals how MTV’s audience-first mentality and “subway car” approach to hiring helped the network scale into a cultural icon. 

Tom’s memoir is Unplugged: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Unplugged/Tom-...

What’s the business story of the summer thus far? SpaceX’s stumble post-IPO? AI security breaches? Ongoing tension surrounding the Strait of Hormuz? Host Bob Safian sits down with Rapid Response producer Alex Morris to weigh in. The pair also break down the impact of Uber COO Andrew Macdonald’s appearance on the podcast, and how it sparked a broader conversation throughout the business world about AI spending. Plu...

Jesse Cole loved baseball. He also knew most people thought it was too long and boring. So he disrupted America’s pastime by putting on a yellow tux - and an incredible show. The founder of the Savannah Bananas welcomed host Jeff Berman to Anaheim Stadium before a show recently to talk about how he’s scaling Fans First Entertainment into a growing league that sells out pro sports stadiums all over the country.

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For decades, Wieden+Kennedy has defined the brands that shape culture. Now, as economic uncertainty, AI, and shifting consumer expectations rewrite the rules of business, CEO Neal Arthur joins Rapid Response to break down why understanding your audience is no longer just the marketing team's job. Arthur shares what today's most successful brands are getting right and how leaders can better understand the culture that moves their cu...

After his first VC-backed business flopped, ButcherBox CEO and founder Mike Salguero turned lessons learned the hard way into the fuel that built his subscription meat delivery business. Salguero joined host Jeff Berman to reveal how a blend of clean ingredients, clever marketing, and hiring for grit helped him scale into a business that’s now making more than $600M a year and expanding into retail nationwide. 

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Serena Williams doesn't just defy convention on the court. She’s also applying her competitive mindset to entrepreneurship and venture investing, recently rebranding her firm from Serena Ventures to StarFire Ventures. Serena joins Bob Safian to discuss how she identified the 16 unicorns now in her portfolio, what she looks for in founders, and how partnerships with companies from Nike to Ro fit into her broader vision. Record...

In this recent episode of Possible, Reid Hoffman sits down with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella fresh off Microsoft Build 2026. The conversation goes wide: how AI is reshaping work, business, and society—and why the transformation sweeping through software development today is only a preview of what's coming for all knowledge work. Satya makes the case that human capital and "token capital" are now deeply intertwined, that compan...

Jim Collins is the author of some of the most important business books of all time, like Good to Great and Built to Last. For his latest project, instead of profiling iconic companies, he zoomed in on extraordinary individuals we can learn from. He joined host Jeff Berman to reveal how icons like Grace Hopper and John Glenn illustrate lessons on how to navigate the cliffs and fog of life. 

Find out more about the book: jimcolli...

Few companies have a better real-time read on the American economy than Delta, and few CEOs are more willing to say what they actually think. Ed Bastian returns to Rapid Response to share what Delta's booking data is telling him that the headlines aren't, why he's not convinced by AI until it moves his top line, and how he decided to yank congressional travel perks during the government shutdown. He also explains what it takes to s...

Therapist Esther Perel wants us all to build stronger relationships at work. Her coveted advice is the centerpiece of her books, TED talks and podcast “Where Should We Begin?” During the pandemic, she launched a conversational card game. In 2025, she joined host Jeff Berman to talk about why she released another edition, Where Should We Begin? At Work, designed specifically for coworkers. They also go deep on why strong...

In the last year, Canva redefined itself from the ground up. Co-founder and Chief Product Officer Cameron Adams joins Rapid Response live from the Cannes Lions festival to explain why the so-called SaaSpocalypse never kept him up at night, how Canva shifted from a design company to an AI company without losing what made it great, and why being only 1% of the way there is actually the most exciting place to be. Adams also shares the...

Tractors are smarter than you think. John Deere, the nearly 200-year-old company, is combining sensors, data, and machine learning in highly advanced vehicles and software to reinvent how the world grows food. On this Pioneers of AI episode, John Deere CTO Jahmy Hindman breaks down how AI is making farms faster, smarter, and more sustainable. Plus he shares his vision for a fully autonomous farm.

Learn more about Pioneers of AI: htt...

Telling a clear story about your product is an essential entrepreneurial skill. Chef Marcus Samuelsson is an expert at this in his beloved restaurants (Hav & Mar and Red Rooster) and through his broader entrepreneurial efforts.

Samuelsson joined host Reid Hoffman in 2024 to share how embracing a diversity of stories has been an essential ingredient to his businesses.

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Gap was never uncool. It just disappeared. CEO Richard Dickson joins Rapid Response to explain how he's bringing it back, using the same pop culture playbook he used to resurrect Barbie at Mattel. He breaks down why he tracks "brand love" metrics on a dashboard hourly, why Sydney Sweeney's viral jeans ad was actually good news for the whole industry, and why the biggest risk a brand can take is playing it safe. 

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Mark Pincus is a serial tech entrepreneur and investor best known as the co-founder of Zynga. He joins host Reid Hoffman to reveal the insights at the center of his new book: Life at the Speed of Play. The godfather of mobile gaming talks with Hoffman about building products people love, learning fast from your mistakes, and handling screen time for his own kids. 

The book: https://www.lifeatthespeedofplay.com/

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Every year at Cannes Lions, the advertising world takes stock of itself — what's working, what's not, and what it's pretending not to notice. Autodesk CMO Dara Treseder joins Rapid Response live from the festival to cut through the noise. She breaks down the industry's complicated relationship with AI, weighs in on the hottest and most overrated campaigns of the year including sharp takes on Nike, Adidas, and Starbucks, and e...