The 12 Best How I Built This Episodes
Hosted by journalist and legendary interviewer Guy Raz, NPR’s How I Built This podcast features interviews with the creators behind iconic companies like Airbnb, Peloton, and Patagonia. Whether you’re interested in building your own business or just curious about how the world’s most disruptive companies came to be, there are tons of fascinating interviews to dive into. With Guy Raz’ masterful interview skills, you’ll get a rare chance to get up close and personal to some of the top entrepreneurs and hear what they were really thinking at every twist and turn of building their companies. And of course, each interview ends with the ultimate question of whether the founders believe their success was due to luck or hard work, and the thought-provoking answers are just as revealing as the entire interviews themselves. Every episode also features a bonus segment with less well-known budding entrepreneurs who are making a mark in their industry and communities. For the best How I Built This episodes, start with this list, curated with recommendations from Podyssey’s users.
Last Updated: Dec 20th, 2021
1) Khan Academy: Sal Khan
Sal Khan walked away from the lucrative hedge fund business to start a non-profit with the ambitious goal to change how education is delivered. What started as a side hustle tutoring his 15 cousins led to a tongue-in-the-cheek video series called “Khan Academy” that’s now a leading education platform with over 30 million users per month. Khan’s journey of social entrepreneurship is a refreshing and motivating story that definitely makes it one of the best How I Built This episodes of all time.
2) Patagonia: Yvon Chouinard
The humble founder of Patagonia is the most unexpected CEO you’ll encounter. In a business world that’s obsessed with growth at all costs, Yvon Chouinard’s philosophy for a sustainable business is exactly the opposite. His story is quite the adventure — you’ll get to hear how he went from pounding metal in his backyard to the time when he came face-to-face with mafia guys during the brink of Patagonia’s death. This reluctant CEO who compares his business to a successful ant colony is an inspiration to all.
3) Wikipedia: Jimmy Wales
The unassuming founder of Wikipedia had big dreams for an online encyclopedia, and so he set out to build just that. Now, Wikipedia is the fifth most visited website globally with thousands of contributors that add and edit humanity’s collective knowledge online. Despite the success of the website, Wales has never made much money from it. In this episode, hear why Wales elected to keep Wikipedia a free destination in order to democratize knowledge for all.
4) reCAPTCHA and Duolingo: Luis von Ahn
Duolingo founder and CAPTCHA inventor, Luis von Ahn grew up in the middle of a civil war in Guatemala where his aunt was kidnapped for ransom, but that didn’t stop him from being a global force for good. Go on a wild journey to hear how the boy genius helped Yahoo solve their spam problem with CAPTCHAs for free, how he helped New York Times digitize their archives in weeks, and how all of that eventually inspired the popular language learning app, Duolingo, today. This is truly an inspiring episode about how tech entrepreneurship can be a positive driver for change.
5) Author and Podcaster: Tim Ferriss
The legendary podcaster and author Tim Ferriss is known for his breakout book The 4-Hour Workweek, but few know the story behind his rise and career pivots from sales person to entrepreneur to author to podcaster. Hear Tim reflect on his formative years as a hustler during the dot-com boom, how he got his book to the top of the New York Times bestseller list when everyone doubted him, and his intense obsession with learning everything including dancing. After listening to this epic How I Built This episode, you’ll come to understand why Tim Ferriss is the brand and the man he is known as today.
6) Spanx: Sara Blakely (2017)
The Spanx episode with Sara Blakely is a top How I Built This episode that fans consistently rate as one of their all time favorites. Blakely was a down-and-out late 20-something when she stumbled across the idea of women's shapewear that eventually led her to reinvent the entire category with her panty line-free hosiery. She takes you on a hilarious rollercoaster ride of how she went from filing her own patent to hustling her way to get Spanx in some of the top retail chains in America.
7) Bumble: Whitney Wolfe (2017)
Bumble is billed the “feminist dating app” where woman make the first move and all the people are just hotter. Its founder, Whitney Wolfe, is one of the world’s few self-made women billionaires and the youngest woman CEO to take a company public. In this best episode of How I Built This, you’ll get a play-by-play of the drama leading up to the creation of the yellow bee dating app. From Whitney’s start in co-founding Tinder to a sexual harrassment lawsuit that led to bullying online, you’ll definitely be inspired by her journey that defied everyone’s expectations.
8) Birchbox: Katia Beauchamp
Entrepreneurs are constantly told that their ideas will never work…until they show their naysayers it does work and make a tonne of money from it. Birchbox’s Hayley Barna and Katia Beauchamp are the resilient co-founders that truly revolutionized the beauty industry with their beauty subscription boxes. But hyper growth doesn’t come without a cost and the pressure can be overwhelming. In this top How I Built This episode, Katia shares with Guy Raz her entrepreneurship saga including the dark sides of success that’s not often talked about in public.
9) Sweetgreen: Nicolas Jammet and Jonathan Neman
A craving for healthy food on a college campus led to the creation of the unicorn salad company, Sweetgreen. Listen to this best How I Built This episode on how college students Nicolas Jammet and Jonathan Neman set out to solve their own diet problem by building a little salad restaurant on the edge of Georgetown University’s campus that blossomed to over 100 stores. You’ll hear the highs and lows — from the elation of opening day to how they had a scary brush against the bankruptcy months after. It’s a fascinating entrepreneurship story of how to learn as you go and not let lack of knowledge or experience stop you from building a great business.
10) Live Episode! Reddit: Alexis Ohanian & Steve Huffman
If you’re looking for the best How I Built This episode that’s live, then look no further than the Reddit episode. Featuring co-founders Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman, hear how two college buddies went from creating a failed SMS food ordering app to making the “front page of the internet” with over 50 million daily active users. This is a fascinating episode that reveals the origins of Reddit’s cute alien mascot, and dissects their big problem with trolls and unwieldy subreddits.
11) Calendly: Tope Awotona
After emigrating from Nigeria to the US to attend college, Tope Awotona worked as a door-to-door salesman and eventually set out to become a tech entrepreneur. He launched a series of e-commerce busi...Show More
12) Headspace: Andy Puddicombe and Rich Pierson
Andy Puddicombe is not your typical entrepreneur – in his early twenties, he gave away everything he owned to train as a Buddhist monk. But after ten years, he decided he wanted to bring the benefits ...Show More
