Bonus Episode! Ask Guy Anything: December 2021

What makes a good How I Built This story? Why do our episodes take weeks to produce? How does Guy prepare for an interview? As a bonus this week, Guy wanted to take some time and answer a bunch of your questions! If you have other burning questions about the show, our process, or even just about Guy, you can Ask Guy Anything by submitting a question at guyraz.com http://www.guyraz.com. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Guy Raz?

  Our presenting sponsor today is Anthropic, the team behind Claude. Every founder on this show started with a hard question. Not the marketing plan, the 2 a.m. kind. Is this idea any good? Am I the one to build it? Should I quit my job? Anthropic got built the same way. A public benefit corporation founded on one hard question. How do we make sure AI goes well for people? So they asked over 100,000 people their hopes and their fears and are publishing what they find, even the uncomfortable parts. Me? I've got my own hard question about AI. Here it is. If everyone has access to something that can help them write the business plan,

• 0:46Guy Raz?

  build the prototype, analyze the market, maybe even come up with the idea, what separates the people who actually build something from everyone else? I don't have a clean answer yet, so I've been sitting with it with Claude. There's hope in hard questions. Ask yours at claude.ai/hibt. We get support from U.S. Bank. A question I love asking founders. What's the one decision you almost didn't make? The one that changed everything? Because it's never the obvious stuff. It's never, I decided to start a company. It's the small, boring, Tuesday afternoon decision you barely remember making until you realize it's the reason everything after it either worked or didn't.

• 1:32Guy Raz?

  Say you're 18 months in. Business is growing. You've got expenses coming from six directions. Gas for the van, office supplies, your phone bill, team lunches that are actually client meetings, and you're putting it all on whatever card you grabbed in year one. You're not thinking about it. Why would you? You've got bigger problems. But here's the thing. Path A, you keep going like that. End of the year, you're sorting through statements, trying to figure out what went where. You've left hundreds, maybe thousands on the table in rewards you never earned, money that could have gone back into the business. Path B, you pause and get The US Bank Triple Cash Rewards Visa Business Card.

• 2:14Guy Raz?

  Now you're earning 3% cash back on gas and EV charging, office supply stores, cellphone service, and restaurants. You pick up an extra $750 cash back as a bonus. And you've got a low APR on purchases and balance transfers for 12 months while you're scaling. Same business, same expenses, two completely different outcomes based on one small decision. Visit usbank.com/business to learn more. The creditor and issuer of this card is US Bank National Association pursuant to a license from Visa USA Inc. Some restrictions apply. If you travel often, you'll want to hear about this unprecedented offer.

• 2:58Guy Raz?

  For the first time ever, new Delta SkyMiles Reserve American Express Card members can earn two Delta Comfort round trip flights for travel within the 48 contiguous US states, Puerto Rico, or the US Virgin Islands. Plus, you can earn 50,000 bonus miles towards your next getaway. And who doesn't appreciate an elevated airport experience? Delta SkyMiles Reserve Card members get access to the Delta Sky Club, your pre-flight oasis to recharge with 15 visits and four one-time guest passes each medallion year when flying Delta together. That's up to $950 in annual value.

• 3:40Guy Raz?

  Value estimate based on $50 per visit rate to purchase additional visits or bring a guest to the Delta Sky Club. Make every trip feel more rewarding with the card that upgrades your travel. Apply today at delta.com/cardsocial. Offer ends November 4, 2026. Minimum spending requirements and terms apply. Flights are fulfilled as flight certificates valid for Delta Comfort or Delta Maine to select domestic destinations. Book 21-plus days in advance. Up to $80 per person and taxes and fees apply. Other restrictions apply. When I pull up to a gas pump to fill my car, I'm not thinking about chemistry or engineering. I'm thinking about getting in, filling up, and getting on with my day.

• 4:23Guy Raz?

  And it reminds me a little bit of the founders I talked to on this show, because the best ones obsess over things their customers will never see. Tiny details, invisible improvements, relentless iteration. And not because anyone's watching, but because it makes the product better. That's what the mobile brand does. It engineers fuel the same way great founders engineer their products. Mobile Supreme Plus Premium Gas helps keep engines three times cleaner, which can mean better performance and improved gas mileage. It's for people who care about what's under the hood, even if they never see it. Three times cleaner compared to mobile regular gas in port-fuel-injected engines. Actual results may vary.

• 5:07Guy Raz?

  Visit mobili fuels.com for details. Hey, everybody. First of all, happy holidays and thank you so much for being part of what we do here. We make this show for you. And as I've said before, I don't think of this show as a business show, even though it's full of really valuable and useful advice and insights on how to start and run a successful business, big or small. I think of it as a storytelling show. And what I try to do in each interview is to get inside the consciousness of each guest with the hope that they will take me and you on the journey that led them to what they built. Anyway, a few weeks ago, I asked you all if you have any questions about the show.

• 5:50Guy Raz?

  And clearly, lots of you do, because we receive tons of them, and we can't get to all of them. But I thought I'd try to answer a few that represented what most of you wanted to know. So let me start with this one from Marley in San Diego. And Marley asks, how do you prepare for a guest's appearance? Is there a particular target market in mind when creating an episode? If so, who? All right, well, Marley, great question. Let me start with how we prepare for a guest's appearance. We actually prepare long before we even approach the guest. So our team, our small team, spends a lot of time.

• 6:29Guy Raz?

  Reading all kinds of publications and websites and magazines, looking for potential guests for the show. Once we have have found a guest and they've agreed that they want to come on the show, we do a very, very deep dive into their life story. So even before we approach the guest, we've done, you know, some pretty substantial work on who they are and their story and their background. And somebody prepares a basic outline of their life and I'll look through it and then I'll have a conversation with them and just explain what we do on the show and if they want to do it. And then they go away and then we, you know, decide if it's going to work out.

• 7:13Guy Raz?

  And then if it does, one of our amazing researchers on the show will go and begin to do a deep dive into this person's life. So that research packet will eventually arrive to me. It's anywhere from 40 to 50 single spaced pages. It's a very dense research packet. So it typically takes me anywhere from five to sometimes 10 hours to prepare for every single interview. Now, the goal is to learn things about the person that I didn't know and sometimes they didn't remember. And so my job as an interviewer is to take all that information that I have and all

• 7:55Guy Raz?

  that reading that I've done and all the research that the team has done and given to me, you know, and essentially try and discover new things about the person, which happens each and every time, multiple times, every single interview. And if I go in so well prepared, then I can, I can do that. I mean, answered your question about is there a particular target market in mind when creating an episode? No, that's the beauty of our show is that our audience, of course, lots of people listening and lots of you listening might have your own store, you might have your own business, you might have an Etsy shop. But lots of people listening don't, you know, they may be inspired to one day want to start something or maybe have a side hustle or maybe are just listening to the show because

• 8:38Guy Raz?

  it inspires a different way of thinking about how they do their work, maybe for a bigger company. So there's no target audience in mind. That's the beauty of our, our audience. It's incredibly diverse. It's just a really, really awesome audience. And so we are so lucky to have all of you listening to the show. Okay. Thank you for that one, Marley. Okay, on to the next one. This is from ISIS in Milford, Michigan. And ISIS asks, how do you pick guests? Okay. There is no simple answer to this question because there's no formula. If there was a formula, you would just plug in A and B and C and D and then you'd get, you know, Y, right? But it's more of an art than a science.

• 9:20Guy Raz?

  So broadly speaking, we look for brands. We look for things that you would recognize, something you might buy in the store or a service you would use online or a product that is relatively familiar. Obviously, we've done less well-known brands, but we look for brands that have a national, maybe even an international presence. But we are based in the US and so oftentimes, many of the products are known only to people in North America. So, brand is something we look for because when people connect with it in some way or they say, oh, I've heard that, it's more likely they'll listen to the episode.

• 10:01Guy Raz?

  The second thing we look for is, does this person want to be on the show? Is this person self-reflective? It's really important that our guests, and by the way, all of our guests are founders. That's the difference between our show and another show. Another show I do, actually called Wisdom from the Top, where I interview CEOs. How I Built This, sometimes our guests are CEOs, but they're always founders of the business. That is crucial. That's why we haven't done the story of Coca-Cola or Ford, because those founders aren't alive. It doesn't mean those stories aren't great. They are great. It's just that we focus on founders. Okay. Back to where I was. So, do they want to be on the show? And that's important because we ask, and the reason why I have a kind of a background

• 10:46Guy Raz?

  conversation with every guest is to explain that We need them to be willing to surrender to the process. I use that word kind of tongue in cheek, but it's a term I use, not sort of like surrender, this is a battle, but more like surrender to the process, trust us. We need you to totally open up to be able to tell your story. And it's not to embarrass you, but it's to show that every human is a 360 degree, you know, animal, right? We're all, we're all complex and we've all done things we're proud of and things we're less proud of it, but it's important to show all those things because if every person on How I Built This was this perfect, buttoned up, perfectly packaged person, it wouldn't be a reflection of reality.

• 11:30Guy Raz?

  So it's important that when we get guests on, that they're willing to talk about their failures, their drawbacks, their struggles, their mistakes, even things that might be a little bit embarrassing, because we want people to be able to relate to that. So that's really important. And then we look for things like struggle. It's harder for us to, on this show, to tell a story of just, you know, rocket success without any setbacks. And it's not to say those stories aren't legitimate or worthwhile to tell. The importance behind, the reason behind that approach is we don't want a cookie cutter story. So that's it. That's basically how we pick guests. Okay, another question from Isis, which show has been your children's favorite, which episode?

• 12:10Guy Raz?

  They, they don't always listen to it because of their dad and their, I'm just being honest. They just don't always want to listen to it. But, but sometimes they do listen to it, especially my older son. And they really like episodes about like food, like Tate's Cookies, or the episode about logic, I think is one of their favorites. And Isis says, your son's favorite is the Home Depot episode. We've listened to it a thousand times. A thousand times. The Home Depot episode. Amazing. Thank you for that, Isis. Okay, we're gonna take a quick break, but in a moment, a question about my own entrepreneurial journey. So stay with me. I will be back in a second.

• 12:50Guy Raz?

  You are listening to, kind of listening to How I Built This, Ask Me Anything. See you on the other side. Does your team want a website that looks and feels handcrafted but is still fast to ship? Well, Framer is built exactly for that. With Framer, you design on a visual canvas with responsive layouts, hosting, and a CMS built in, so the work is production-ready from day one. And you can get it done with help from Framer's AI agents. Framer is the AI website builder that helps creators, teams, and businesses ship production-ready sites faster than ever while getting every detail right.

• 13:31Guy Raz?

  Prompt, inspect, edit, and publish in one place at a whole new pace. AI agents and humans work together. The agents bring speed and scale, and people bring taste, judgment, and control. Learn how you can get more out of your site from a Framer specialist or get started building for free today at framer.com/built for 30% off a Framer Pro annual plan. That's framer.com/built. Rules and restrictions may apply. AI isn't just opening new business opportunities. It's changing the way businesses get work done. The questions they ask, the decisions they make, the routine tasks they can hand off.

• 14:15Guy Raz?

  That's the idea behind NetSuite Next, the next generation of NetSuite with AI woven into the tools your business already relies on. NetSuite Next surfaces insights exactly when you need them, puts agents to work on routine tasks and problems, and lets you ask complex questions in plain language, like talking to a knowledgeable colleague. But technology is only part of the story. AI is also reshaping how people and teams work together, and that shift is already underway. That's why NetSuite wants to put a new expert-created business guide in your hands today. It's called "Aligning for the Agentic Era: How AI is Changing Everyday Work."

• 14:58Guy Raz?

  And right now, it's yours, absolutely free. Inside, you'll discover how AI could reshape work across your entire organization and how to position you. Your business to prosper from it. If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, get NetSuite's free business guide, Aligning for the Agentic Era: How AI is Changing Everyday Work at netsuite.com/built. The guide is free to you at netsuite.com/built. netsuite.com/built. Stripe is built for whatever comes next because the pace of change has never been faster than it is right now. New business models, new currencies, and new expectations for speed, reliability, and scale.

• 15:43Guy Raz?

  Stripe builds financial infrastructure that helps businesses start, grow, and operate globally. From payments and billing to fraud protection and cross-border payouts, Stripe is built to support the new pace of commerce. They're trusted by the companies building at the frontier, from 86% of the Forbes AI 50 to global leaders like Salesforce and OpenAI. In fact, more than 1.6% of global GDP flows through Stripe, with Stripe's users processing a combined $1.9 trillion last year. So if you're already thinking about what's next for your business, see what's possible at stripe.com.

• 16:29Guy Raz?

  Hey, welcome back. I'm answering a few of your questions on this episode today. We're going to be back with a bunch of new incredible episodes in the new year, and I just can't wait for them. So look out for those. All right, let's move on to this question from Mica in Alberta, Canada. Mica, I love Canada. My wife, my children are Canadian. Woo, go Canada.

• 16:52Guy Raz?

  Mica asks, "Listening to all these stories, does it ever make you think about starting your own business?"

• 16:59Guy Raz?

  Well, Micah, it turns out that I do have two businesses. I don't talk about it much. I don't necessarily think-- this show isn't about me. It's about our guests. But I do have two production companies that I founded or co-founded. One is Built to Productions, which is involved in producing this show. And I produce a show called Wisdom from the Top, which you can also listen to and subscribe to. It's a really-- I love it. It's a really interesting show about leadership, management, big ideas around what makes certain businesses work. I interview current CEOs, former CEOs, interview really great business book authors like Jim Collins. We've had Indra Newy of Pepsi on it. We've

• 17:41Guy Raz?

  had Ken Chenault of American Express, just some really amazing CEOs. Also, with Built to Productions, produced a show called The Rewind on Spotify. I no longer do it, but a really fun show where I interviewed pop singers about their life. And then I'm a co-founder of another production company called Tinkercast. And this is a children's media company. And if there are any parents out there or you know any kids in your life, you might know our best-known show. It's called Wow in the World. It's a science show for kids and parents. It's a show I started with my friend Mindy Thomas almost five years ago. And it's super fun. Every episode is rooted in a real, peer-reviewed

• 18:26Guy Raz?

  scientific journal article. And we explain science to kids and parents and to ourselves. And we go on these incredible adventures. We have a time machine. We've got a giant pigeon named Reggie. We have a nosey neighbor named Dennis. Mindy's grandma, G-Force, is a world champion wrestler, of course, not really, but in the show. And it's super fun. We actually do a live show. We're going on the road back in 2022. So that's part of Tinkercast. We also have two other new podcasts. One is called How to Be an Earthling. It's about two aliens who are travel writers for their distant planet, and they happen to end up in our galaxy and in our solar system. And they crash, land into Earth, and they

• 19:07Guy Raz?

  are stuck on Earth. And on every episode, they meet a different earthling species, which happens to be an animal species. And it's full of original music from the pop-ups, who also do the Wow in the World theme song. They're a-- Incredible band. So that's, there's that show. And then another new show we launched called Who Won Wow?, which is a biography show. We've told the story of Roberto Clemente and Houdini and Shirley Chisholm, amazing people throughout history. So all those shows are designed to be listened to by parents and kids together. We do live shows, as I mentioned, we've got all kinds of partnerships and publishing, and we are even working on an ed tech platform. And hopefully in 2022,

• 19:48Guy Raz?

  we'll have our first commercial product available. So, so yes, indeed, I am an entrepreneur. Thank you for the question, Micah. I'm gonna do one last one. This is from Peter O'Brien in Dublin, Ireland. I love, love Dublin. I've been there a bunch of times. Peter, I was once there on Blooms Day with my family, and it was so cool to see everyone dressed up like characters from Ulysses in the pubs along Grafton Street. It's, I've got such an enduring memory of that day. It was so fun. All right. Peter's question is, is there a fact checking process in How I Built This, in the post-production process? And are interviewees allowed to tell their own truth, or is time spent verifying the details? Okay. It's a

• 20:32Guy Raz?

  great question. There is an intense fact checking process. So not only do we do a deep biographical dive into the person's life story, we also have a very detailed timeline. And oftentimes, I'm interviewing somebody and they'll say, well, then in 2007, I did this and this and that. And I know that that happened in 2006. And I will stop them mid-interview and I'll say, hey, I'm just gonna stop you. That happened in 2006. So we're real, really we're sticklers for facts and for details about the facts. And we do a fact check in post-production on every show. We'll go through the transcript and we fact check. And now there are some things you just can't fact check, you know, that haven't been You know, a thought in someone's mind, for example,

• 21:17Guy Raz?

  or the breakfast they ate one day, just things that are not out in the public domain. So invariably, it is a singular perspective from the person I'm interviewing. It's that person's perspective, or the two people I'm interviewing. It's their perspective. So, you know, it's different than a documentary, because in a documentary, you've got multiple voices telling a story. This is an oral history show through the voice and the perspective of one person. So there are always going to be perspectives that other people might see differently. But we work really, really hard to make it accurate and to make sure it is accurate and to make sure it is, and the facts check out.

• 21:58Guy Raz?

  Peter also adds, "I imagine that would be expensive and maybe even impossible or time consuming. It is all of those things. It is expensive, it's time consuming. We spend, that's why it takes us so long to produce an episode. And we have a small team and we put a lot of care into making sure that the show stands up to scrutiny." So that's really important. There are lots of podcasts out there, lots of really good podcasts out there that are live to tape or that, you know, where you hear things that may not actually be accurate. And, you know, for us, it's really, really important. It just, we think that we have to do that. And so that's it. So, great question. Thank you, Peter. Thank you, everyone, for your awesome questions.

• 22:43Guy Raz?

  If you would like to submit one for a future Q and A session, just go to guyraz.com and fill out the form. Thank you again. Happy holidays. Thank you so much for being part of our world. We love you, guys. Thanks.