10 unforgettable moments of 2022

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Hi everyone, it's Bob Safian. I'm here with a very special episode. At year end, it's natural to reflect on our experiences, what's changed, what we've learned. We want to be prepared for the year ahead and inspired to grab new opportunities. So The team here at Masters of Scale has chosen of our most unforgettable moments from twenty twenty two, from both our classic episodes with Fried Hoffman and Masters of Scale Rapid Response.

These highlights illuminate key lessons about resilience and creativity and triumph. They're emotional at times and also fun. These ten moments are more than a recap of the year gone by, they're a roadmap for the year ahead. About how to manage uncertainty with grace and purpose. to deliver impact.

No matter what comes. Сит. Listen in. And enjoy.

You gotta have incredible talent at every position. There are fires burning when you're going out. Can you believe it? Such an idiot. And then you go back to this is totally gonna be amazing. There are so many easy ways. I have no idea what to do. Sorry, we made a mistake. But you have to time it right. Oops. Working out of a free bedroom apartment. We haven't made it just how you do it. This Is masters of scale.

I'm Bob Safian, and this is Ten Unforgettable Moments of Twenty Twenty Two. Our first unforgettable moment of the year comes from Damon John, founder of Fubu and one of the original sharks on ABC's Shark Tank. Damon spoke with Reed Hoffman early in twenty twenty-two about the power of strategic partnerships. You can find the link to the episode and to all of the episodes you'll be hearing today in our show notes. In this highlight, Damon shares a delightful and inspiring story from his early days as an entrepreneur.

Fubu was a scrappy new streetwear brand run mostly by Damon himself, and he was desperate to raise Fubu's profile. His effort is a lesson in creativity and perseverance. His unlikely plan is Get rapper LL Cool J to wear one of Fubu's shirts. Let's listen.

I remember going over to his house. And he was leaving, he's moving to LA. because he's gonna go shoot a show in the house. I didn't know him that well. Well I waited out there with my partners for about four or five hours.

Damon and his partners didn't have a pitch deck. Or a lengthy endorsement contract to sign. They had a T shirt. And they wanted L L to put it on. came outside and I asked him could he wear the shirt and take a picture in

He said he couldn't because he was going on to a show and he had sponsorship opportunities from Nike and Adidas and all these people. And then if he wore my shirt, he's gonna have to turn down millions of dollars. In hindsight, this was a perfectly good reason to say No. Fubu was small. And totally unproven.

But they were part of the same community. Raise just a few blocks apart. So L Cool J reconsidering. He said that he saw me being a hard working guy. He felt that He couldn't look at his customers, all the people that support him from the neighborhood in the face if he didn't take his picture for me.

LL took the picture. And Damon sprang into action. I spent every dime I had. I took out an ad in the Source magazine, the hip hop Bible to time. Everybody saw that air.

That ad would give Kubu the credibility and leverage to secure thousands of orders and make their first big scale jump. And later, Fuba would give LL Cool J a piece of the company. It was a partnership. That was both strategic And authentic.

Our next unforgettable moment is if anything more dramatic. It comes from an entrepreneur in Ukraine named Alona Misko. She's CEO of a Kyiv based startup called Fuel Finance. Alona joined us on rapid response in April, just over a month after Russia invaded, at a time when many observers expected Ukraine to be overrun. She faced a chaotic and frightening situation, yet she was. Remarkably calm and even upbeat.

Alona shared what it was like having to operate her business in a war zone, including being named Product of the Day on Product Hunt. In the middle of a bombing raid. It's a story of resilience under fire, literally. Let's listen. We had a guest on recently who talked about people in Kiev working

in shelters with their laptops looking for wifi. Yeah, we uh we like still work like this during the day we have the serents, so we need to go to bomb shelters, but everyone in Ukraine trying to work now. And yes, people work in bomb shelters, and we are happy that in most bomb shelters we have wifi, so we can work. So like a little bit like normal life now, because yeah, we take our laptops, we go to bomb shelters, but Okay, we still work and uh the most craziest day when we decided to go to Product Hunt because

When we decided to launch something, especially on this day, we will have most number of series during the day. So usually it was like two or three before, but on this day we had seven times. per day is a series, so we should go to bomb shelter every time. So it's it was really crazy. Was it scary? You're you're smiling, it's almost like it's uh now looking back like it was An adventure. I guess it's an adventure if you're okay, but it sounds a little scary. During the first two weeks we were scary, but I think on the third week already.

We understand okay what is going on. And after that you try to live your life with new reality. We try to smile, we try to be positive because first of all, I have the team, and when they see that we have like positive attitudes. And all executive team has positive attitude, it's more easier for others like do their job every day.

Our next unforgettable moment is about envisioning the future and making a sharp pivot to meet it. It comes from Natalie Massine, founder of the luxury e-commerce site Netaporte. Netherporte was a pioneer of online retail when it was founded in 2000, and that was only one of the massive industry shifts that Natalie predicted. In this next story from her classic episode with Reed, Natalie recalls the moment she recognized that a second Zeitgeist level shift. was coming to online shopping.

Take note of the bravery required when challenging even your own team. Let's listen. Women were trying to check out on their blackberries. I came back to my team and I was like, people want to shop on their mobile phones. Help realize this future pivot.

Natalie found herself pushing against antibodies to change within her own team. My own team. By this time they were all sitting, you know, across from these big IMAX screens. Designing on like Fully immersive color fifty inch screens.

And they were like, you know, no one's gonna want to shop on their phone. Look at how beautiful this desktop experience is. And I was like, you guys sound just like the department stores. We disrupted department stores and shops. And people used to say to me, you're crazy. People want to go into stores. They want the experience. They want to touch things.

So I was like if consumers want to shop on their mobile phones, we should build for them the best mobile shopping experience that we can possibly do. Today it's horrible and rudimentary, but it's gonna get better. This next moment is one from a recent conversation I had with Morro Porcini on Rapid Response. He's the chief design officer at PepsiCo, and I actually haven't been able to stop thinking about it since. Morrow is recalling a moment early in his career when he'd just been hired by 3M and And journeyed from Italy to three M's headquarters in the US. Morrow thought he had full buy-in from the company to enact his vision.

Until one executive gave him a reality check. I don't want to spoil any surprises, so I'll let Morrow take it from here. I was twenty seven, they asked me to start in Europe. It was the consumer business. If it was not working, whatever. And I remember taking my suitcase and travelling to Minnesota from Italy and pitching this idea of design. To the stack company in the middle of the Midwest. And I remember the first meeting to the RD leaders and with the marketing leaders and And they loved it.

I was so excited, I was like, yes, they get it, it's gonna be easy. I was twenty seven, full of enthusiasm. And I remember going to the office of the executive sponsor of this initiative. His name is Monosari, he was the EVP of the consumer business of the company, one of the most powerful person. Inside that organization back then. And I go to Mo and I tell him. Look more. It's amazing. Our design vision is appreciated by everybody. So he was there on the other side of this big desk. He looks at me and is like with his serious face. He says.

They're all lying to you. I make. Mo No no no no You were not in the room, I tell you they are not lying to me. There was enthusiasm and Mo looks at me again and the serious again he repeats. I'm telling you that they are all Line to you.

He told me, look, imagine you are in a gallery. Well, Mauro, you and design, you're one of the paintings. And the people are not buying you. They're buying all other paintings. I know because I gave them that money, and I know what paintings they're buying. They're buying the latest HR initiative or the new plant in Florida or whatever. They're not investing design. That changed my life. That really helped me understand a major blind spot that I have. And after that. I developed the technique to understand who was with me and who was not with me.

So the technique I developed is very simple. Every time I pitch something, I ask people Sorto sacrifajse commiment. Most of the time I ask them money, give me the money, you know, invest in people in resources to run the projects. Sometimes in business conditions hit that you can't avoid that disrupt everything you've planned. We saw plenty of that in twenty twenty two, from supply chains to lingering covet issues.

to inflation and layoffs. So how do you handle it when your world turns upside down, when the threat is existential? Earlier this year with the US Supreme Court poised to overturn Roe v Wade I spoke with Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood. And Alexis offered some truly unforgettable insights.

into how she was keeping her team energized and hopeful. In a time of deep disappointment. When you talk about your team, like You know, the conditions you face now can impact morality. I guess it can be

Hard to sort of Keep. Spirits up? When you're losing ground in some legal and regulatory areas. How do you keep

Your team that human motivation side. positive in the organization. How do you keep your own spirits up and engaged when things aren't going your way? My favorite quote by Alice Walker is a poem called Hope is a Woman Who Has Lost Her Fear. And I I think about that a lot. I've meditated. It's sitting up on my wall right now because I think that's who we have to be right now. We have to be fearless. We have to be unapologetic and we have to Hold

I think two really important things. We have to hold both the notion that We will be the leadership. of Planned Parenthood when Roe is likely overturned or gutted irrevocably. So what does it mean to preside over some version of the end of row? How do you kind of

Address that from a part space. While you were fighting feverishly. to do everything you can to leave it all on the field. And then how do you Like

create the container for people to process those feelings while also saying You know what? But on the day after. We are also going to be in leadership. when we are rethinking who do we want to be when we are no longer

defending a law that quite frankly was not sufficient for the majority of our state. That was, as our reproductive justice colleagues say, was the floor, not the ceiling. Who do we want to be when we are not fighting over the privacy and burden and gestation and admitting privileges, all these things that have chipped away, but we are actually having a fundamental conversation around equality and freedom. And what does it look like? What does it look like in every school? What does it look like in every corporation? The hope that I'm trying to impart to my team right now to say it is going to be dark. We are literally in the darkness. But On the other side.

While we are Processing that. like Sisyphus rolling the the boulder up the hill in the piece by Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus. We have to imagine him happy. Right.

And I think that's the moment we are in and that's the fire that I'm trying to bring into the team. When you've built substantial wealth through your business, it's often tied up in a single equity position. The upside is real, but so is the risk, and knowing when to act isn't always obvious. Creative planning works with business owners to build a strategy around concentrated equity. When to diversify, how to manage tax risk, and how to protect what you've spent years.

Building. Creative planning where wealth works together. Learn more at creative planning dot com slash masters of scale. Humans will never be more intelligent than AI. There's gonna be two types of companies.

Those were great at AI and those that went out of business because they weren't. How do we build a future? That is human centered. I'm Rana El Calyubi. And on my podcast Pioneers of AI, we answer that question and so many more. As an AI scientist, entrepreneur, and investor, I know what it takes to build AI that works for everyone. Every week, I sit down with the pioneers shaping our future. And we take you behind the scenes of the AI that's transforming our lives.

Find pioneers of AI wherever you tune in. Hey, listeners, Bob here. If you listen to Rapid Response on Masters of Scale, you may be missing half the show because every Friday we release a second Rapid Response exclusively in the Rapid Response feed. The guests and topic are just as compelling and timely. From Ford CEO to NASA's administrator to the lessons from The Devil Wears Prada. It takes about 10 seconds to find, just search rapid response wherever you listen to podcasts and hit follow to make sure you never miss an episode. I hope to see you there. We're back with 10 unforgettable moments from 222. If you're enjoying this episode, you can share it with friends right now in your podcast app.

And if you have your own favorite moments of twenty twenty two from Masters of Scale, let us know, find us on social media, or send us a message at hello at mastersofscale.com. One aspect of twenty twenty two that's been impossible to forget. Is the plunge crypto's taken in the past year? Well before the recent FTX implosion, Reed and I discussed crypto's future in our July edition of Need to Know. The lessons here are about dispassionately separating positive and negatives when emotion is running high. Let's jump in.

So I wanna ask you about the crypto world. We've seen heavy price correction, some people calling it a crypto winter. You talk to me A while ago about the debate among Silicon Valley investors between AI and crypto, but like what's gonna be the defining tech of the next era. And in recent weeks, it seems like the markets like answered that question.

Not crypto. The for all the promise of web three, like It's too early. Where do you sit on this? Did hyperbole get ahead of practical application, or are we like

Over correcting. On the fear side. You know, it's funny because I listen to both sides. I got one side's like, well, it's all equities that have no value and backing that people are buying. And then the other side, which is this is the fundamental new platform that has been missing for how you evolve the internet. That it will touch a number of really key things. I go, Well actually in fact

Weirdly enough, since they seem in opposition, both are right. the crypto bulls are right because this is a fundamental new technology application. I do think it'll affect Things like identity and payments and financial systems and Art and creativity and everything else.

on the internet. And I think you already see some of it, even though the use cases are tiny and you have yet to really grow. And then on the other hand, I'd say, but is the bulk of the speculation around these crypto tokens Do a bunch of them look like pump and dump? sorts of schemes.

Yep, a bunch of them do look that way. There's important values for the future of our financial society on both sides. And the real thing is reflecting what's really good about how we shape our society. And it's both. Not one or the other. So therefore that nuance set of how you shape it is really important. So I'm

Still very bullish on crypto overall in the long term. I think that correcting kind of what the immediate value of these things is, I think is a good correction. Our next highlight is from entrepreneur, politician, and author Stacey Abrams. In Stacy's episode with Reed.

She shared a lesser known chapter of her life, her time as a business owner. Stacey's story on working with a co-founder and the lessons of leveraging their complimentary skill sets. Was one of our most memorable of the year. Here's Stacey. We went to Katsabue, Alaska.

And we're fly fishing, we're doing she fishing. in a catch and release area in Cottabu. It was cold. It was bівtiful. I'm in the water, I'm casting fast.

and reeling it even faster. That's Stacey Abrams. You probably know her as a leading voice in American politics. But the story she's telling is a window into our parallel life as an entrepreneur. In two thousand six, Stacey and her friend Laura Hodgson co founded a small venture called Insomnia Consulting.

Now they found themselves north of the Arctic Circle. Trying to win a new client. That would be the Alaska Native Corporation, or Nana. Representing local indigenous communities. Our guides are members of the Indiepat tribe that own the Nana Corporation. And so we're out there

And one of the gentlemen came up to me and he was going to gently correct my casting and I said, No, no I know what I'm doing. My dad is an avid fisherman, so I know how to fish. But her guide pointed out the obvious flaw in her argument. He said, well, you're not catching any fish. I'm like, I don't want to catch the fish. It's cold in this water and I just want to give it a requisite amount of time and then get out.

But out of graciousness, because I am southern I caught three she fish, I demonstrated my prowess with the rod and the reel, I released the fish, and I got out of the water. I'm back on the boat, I'm reading the book I want to read, and Lara is still in the water. and she is catching and releasing and her she fish count is you know rising by the moment. And they lean over and they said, She's really good.

Is she gonna stay out there all day? I'm like Lara's gonna stay out there until you tell her to stop. Despite the frigid temperatures. Stacey's co-founder was determined to be the queen of the shefish. I think that was one of those moments where

In the cold of Alaska, I saw encapsulated who we are. I want to get the mission done and Lara is relentless. We refer to ourselves as yes and but. She is yes. And I think o

But This fishing tale could be a modern fable of entrepreneurship. On the one hand, Laura. Relentless pursuit of a goal and a willingness to stay in the icy river, no matter what. On the other hand.

Stacy, who said, get the job done fast. and get the heck back on the boat. When we tell the stories of successful founders, we often elevate the That first way. We say.

Be competitive. Tenacious. The last one in the water. But look closer. Stasis's approach is not just viable.

But ruthlessly efficient. She knew her goal was to win the client. Not catch the most fish. So she marshaled the resources where they mattered most. Both approaches are valid.

And both Stacy and Laura. Would go on to become scale leaders. As yes. And But

Each would have a different challenge in front of them. Our next unforgettable moment is about gratitude and about impact. With COVID 19 seemingly fading as a lethal threat in much of the world, it's easy to take for granted the incredible achievement of COVID vaccines. The next story is from someone who worked tirelessly to get those vaccines into the world, Moderna CEO Stefan Pancel.

Hier he shares with Reed the moment he learned that Moderna's MRNA vaccine trials were a success. And then it was in November The day before we of course we announced the data publicly was on a Sunday. We have an independent safety monitoring board. met and reviewed the blinded data with placebo and so on.

I was not at that meeting but were informed after. of uh ninety four percent efficacy and so on, which was crazy. And We spent two minutes just with my team once we disconnected the other members just to think, okay, what do we do and so on. And then I was at home, it was on a Sunday. And I called my wife and my girls and I just started crying and we had a big kind of family crying like like little kids, you know, just I was just so happy because

What went through my head emotional wise and song was Yeah, we were gonna be able to help a lot of people. Yeah. No, and Clearly.

And then what was getting your own first dose like? So it was surreal because In the ten years before I never thought And I hope I will never need them another product'cause we're working on cancer drug and drug for people with heart attacks and rare genetic disease, all very bad stuff. And what was very special is I went with my wife.

And the nails were very nice'cause The nurse were vaccinated before us. And so they were super thankful when they realized I was a CEO and so on. And that's not who the company and everything. And so I said do you mind if I got

the shot at the same time as my wife. They moved the partition and so on to put the two chairs together and we talking to each other. I I took my wife's hand and we both literally on respective arms Got off shots. Not all of our favorite moments of the year had to do with recent history. In this next story from Bill Ford of Ford Motor Company, we're going back in time, though not. All the way to nineteen oh three when Bill's great grandfather Henry Ford founded the company.

Instead, we're digging into Bill's efforts over the last few decades, refounding parts of the organization that had become outdated. One of the most glaring examples is the River Rouge plant, or as Bill refers to it, the Rouge. Once a symbol of modern automation, the Rouge had fallen into disrepair, polluting the land and waterways surrounding it. Bill wanted to transform it into a model of environmentally responsible manufacturing. Here's how that happened.

Some things were very high tech. Like we Use the paint fumes which are s especially noxious. We captured them to power a fuel cell.

We used things that were very low tech, like we had Michigan State come in. And they did a field of phytoremediation. Where they're going to be able to do it Planted swales of grasses. Which would suck up all the heavy metals.

And what would come out the other end? Is drinking quality water. Imagine that versus giant PVC tubes of junk. Better dump directly into the Detroit River. And the fines we would have had to have paid to do that.

And all this was was a field of very attractive plants. About as low tech as you could get. Same thing with the parking lot. Instead of having sewers and everything puddle up, we just did permeable pavement. So everything just went right into the ground, and there was no

Runoff and all the nasty things that goes with runoff. Yeah, and then we did at the time the world's largest green roof. This green roof is by itself a feat of engineering. It covers ten point four acres. That's about

Eight. NFL football fields. Thirteen different species of vegetation grow on the roof and create a habitat for nesting birds. 10 degreer in the summer and 10 degrees warmer in the winter.

Its very existence created a foothold for the green roof industry in North America. But as Bill points out. Ford employees had skin in the game beyond making life better for local birds. Most of everything we did was a cost save.

It was also very important to humanize the place, not just make it green. So we opened it all up with natural light. Not surprisingly, our employee satisfaction went up dramatically working there. So absenteeism dropped, and all the things that we worry about as employers got better. In the end it was a huge success and the other automakers came to study what we had done. Interestingly, just like they had done a hundred years prior to study what my great grandfather had done. Finally, for our last moment, we want to share a highlight from the inaugural Masters of Scale Summit twenty twenty two, which for us was certainly one of the most unforgettable events of the year. I was joined on stage for a session on creating culture by Angela Arends of Apple and Burberry. Derek Hashahi of Uber and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt.

This snippet has Angela and Dara comparing Angela's transformation efforts at Burberry and at Apple. While the tactics were different, what connects them is Angela's clarity and her passion. I mean Angela, you had you had a to do a Kinds of

Conversation's not unlike Doris talking about. Yeah, and I think I think like you said, you know, you pull everybody together, you gotta be transparent. And you can tell by looking in the audience at your top one hundred who's going to be on your team and who's aligned to your strategy and vision. And and not mine, by the way, the one the team had put together. And funny, my first offside at Burberry literally Yeah, three days in.

And I looked out in the audience and I said, I can tell you right now who's not on board, and I am very happy to give you an incredible package. Will be a great reference for you, but Everybody needs to be a hundred percent in or we're not gonna win. I I'm curious as to what Eric said. For Uber it was pretty clear it was a turnaround. For coming into Apple from Berber, it wasn't

Did you have to state? Whether this was a turnaround or he Keep going the way you're going, et cetera. Did you have to Yeah no no I said the opposite. I said again, the most successful retailer on the planet, five times the productivity of any of its closest peers.

And so no, I had to honor and respect what was built and say. Might sound odd, but I don't know what to do. So together You know you're on the front line, and that's why we're gonna put all these communications in place so you can tell us and you can problem solve. And so almost the opposite. And I said I know there's things we can do better inside of the store. So what are those? And I know that

Well we actually did a huge crowdsourcing exercise with you know and the and the teams kept growing as we were rolling out more stores, and we said in order to inform the new in-store experience, we asked them over the course of six months what did they feel Apple should be doing more of in their community? And that's when that informed the whole experience. But it involved them. So then when you launched it. I mean you could ramp up to you know, twenty, thirty thousand sessions a week and they owned it'cause they were part of creating it. Mm. There you have it, our ten most unforgettable moments of the year. We hope you've enjoyed them and that they've helped remind you of your own milestones and achievements.

Enjoy the holidays and from all of us at Masters of Scale, we wish you a safe and happy new year. Thanks for listening. Masters of Scale is a Wait What original. Our executive producers are June Cohen, Darren Triff, and Jordan McLeod. Our head of content and production is Lori Hoffman.

Our producers are Adam Skew's Catherine Clark Ray. Alex Morris, Tucker Legirski. And Chris Gautier. Our editor at large is Bob Safian. Our music director is Ryan Holliday.

Original music and sound design by Eduardo Rivera. Audio Editing by Keith J. Nelson. Stephen Davies. Andrew Knoll and Brad Warrell. Mixing and Mastering by Marin Bastanelli.

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