REI’s secrets to sustaining a beloved brand and touching grass

REI has been around for 88 years. Mary Beth Laughton wants to make sure it’s around for 88 more. The CEO of America’s largest consumer co-op joins Rapid Response to talk about what it actually takes to revive an iconic business — without shareholders, without quarterly earnings calls, and with 26 million members who hold you to a higher standard than any Wall Street analyst ever could. She explains why her first act as CEO was to publicly break ties with a Trump cabinet secretary, and how the co-op structure gives REI a kind of clarity that most retailers can’t buy. Plus lessons drawn from Nike, Sephora, and Athleta on what it really means to lead a mission-driven brand when the values are battle tested, not just stated. Visit the Rapid Response website here: https://www.rapidresponseshow.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.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  We've all spent money on something that seemed incredible, but didn't live up to the hype. A kitchen gadget, a car. When it doesn't deliver, the disappointment is real. Marketers suffer from this, too. Chasing metrics that look great, but don't translate into revenue. LinkedIn calls that bull spend. Invest in what matters and reach the right buyers with LinkedIn Ads. You can target by company, industry, job title, and more. LinkedIn Ads also generates the highest ROAS of all major ad networks. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn Ads and get a $250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com/Scale. That's LinkedIn.com/Scale. Terms and conditions apply.

• 0:48Speaker 00

  The very best founders I know are brilliant at building systems. They connect teams, they remove bottlenecks, and they eliminate single points of failure. And yet, when it comes to their own wealth, most are running a disconnected stack. A tax accountant here and a state attorney there, a wealth manager who doesn't talk to either one of them. Creative Planning was built to fix exactly that. One integrated team of tax professionals, state planners, investment specialists, all coordinated by a dedicated wealth manager who sees your full financial picture and keeps every piece working together. Proactive tax efficiency, estate strategy, investments, all under one roof.

• 1:32Speaker 00

  Creative Planning, where wealth works together. Learn more at creativeplanning.com/mastersofscale.

• 1:42Speaker 01

  The biggest thing at stake, I think, is making sure we can be around for another 88 years. How do we create a long-term, sustainable co-op that is healthy, that continues to leverage our strength and our heritage, doesn't lose sight of our mission and values? It is a tricky equation, but what's so amazing about REI is just the passion of the people. And that just gives me the faith that we will get to that really healthy place again and do so much good for the world as well.

• 2:19Bob Safian?

  That's Mary Beth Lawton, CEO of iconic outdoor goods retailer REI. MB, as she's known, came over from Nike in early 2025, tasked with reviving a business plagued by post-pandemic losses and internal discontent. MB talks with me about her priorities in riding the ship, including REI's unusual structure as a cooperative tasked with serving members rather than shareholders. She also talks about steps she's taken to publicly distance REI from the Trump White House and lessons she's applying from her previous executive roles at Nike, Athleta, and Sephora. So let's get to it. I'm Bob Safian, and this is Rapid Response.

• 3:08Bob Safian?

  I'm Bob Safian. I'm here with Mary Beth Lawton, President and CEO of REI. MB, welcome to the show.

• 3:15Speaker 01

  Thanks, Bob. So great to be here.

• 3:17Bob Safian?

  I was in Soho in Manhattan just a few days ago, and I walked past where the REI store used to be. It was, it was kind of sad not to see it there.

• 3:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:27Bob Safian?

  I'd heard that there was a symbolic funeral ceremony for the store?

• 3:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, people put post-it signs on the windows. I think there was just a lot of love for, for that store, but obviously for REI overall. I think a lot of people liked the bathrooms in that store, I heard.

• 3:43Bob Safian?

  The bathrooms, very important in a New York City location. Clean bathrooms.

• 3:47Speaker 01

  That's right. That was a great store.

• 3:49Bob Safian?

  Yeah, I mean, REI is a company built around getting people into the outdoors. Are you an outdoorsy person yourself? Have you always been?

• 3:57Speaker 01

  Oh, yes, very much so. Since I was a little kid, just running around the neighborhood. Being outside has always been something that's really freeing for me and centers and grounds me. And I just feel kind of just really myself when I'm outside. So these days, I spend time hiking a lot. Living in the Pacific Northwest is great for that.

• 4:18Bob Safian?

  I was a city kid. I grew up in New York, you know, and I've lived here my whole life. And I like to be outside, but my time in the great outdoors these days is largely near my Brooklyn apartment in Prospect Park. Do folks like me stack up against like true outdoorsmen and women as customers?

• 4:37Speaker 01

  Oh, for sure. Yeah. I mean, we welcome everybody who loves the outdoors. We want to be part of your outdoor life, whether you're, you know, climbing a 14er or you're at your local urban park, right?

• 4:49Bob Safian?

  Climbing a 14er. See, this is not an expression I'm used to. Are you a climber?

• 4:54Speaker 01

  No, no, but I appreciate people who are.

• 4:58Bob Safian?

  Well, I, I mean, these days, being in nature, right, is in a lot of ways more important than ever in a world of screens and tech.

• 5:08Speaker 01

  We've actually partnered with some different organizations on health studies of the outdoors. And what we found is that even 20 minutes outside a day can help really, you know, center people, give them mental and physical health benefits. And so it's just, it's really, really important that people find some time to just get outside when they can.

• 5:29Bob Safian?

  You came over to REI from Nike, where the, the mission is around sport. And I know if you've got a body or an athlete, that's part of their, the rap there. But it's not about the product, but it's about what we do with it. Does REI have, have an analogous mission or approach?

• 5:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, we definitely are trying to just connect people to the power of the outdoors is, is our mission. We want to help you, you know, get geared up for that. And what's so great about REI, right, is our green vests. If you've been in our stores.

• 6:04Bob Safian?

  Green vests are your employees. They're wearing green vests.

• 6:07Speaker 01

  They are wearing green vests. I wear mine, too, when I go into stores sometimes. I mean, they're one of our, you know, just most special aspects of the co-op. And they really do want to help people just find the gear that they're looking for, whatever activity and whatever your circumstances are. It's part of our, our secret sauce.

• 6:27Bob Safian?

  You came over as CEO about a year and a half ago. And it's kind of a turbulent moment for retailers all across the board. Tariffs, union pressure, like, what was your focus? Did you know what you wanted to change? Has that shifted at all in the time you've been there?

• 6:43Speaker 01

  Yeah, I definitely came in during a very turbulent time. And I think I would have done this anyway, but it put even more emphasis to me on the need to just listen and learn at the beginning and really get a grasp of what was going on in the company and in the broader macro environment and with our employees, in our stores across the country, with our vendor partners, and then really worked with the team within my first six months to craft a strategic plan called Peak 28, so.

• 7:11Bob Safian?

  Did you feel like the business was solid, was stable? Were there things that were like, this part of the business has got to change?

• 7:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, there were clear opportunity areas. The co-op certainly had a lot of, of things going forward and does today. But I also saw there were things like member engagement that were starting to show signs that we needed to turn things a different direction. Profitability wise, the co-op hadn't been in a great place for a few years. And then there were just a bunch of retail fundamentals that I came in as someone who's been at different retailers and was really able to narrow in on where we needed to, to make some changes.

• 7:51Bob Safian?

  You've mentioned a co-op a couple of times. REI has an unconventional structure. It's the largest consumer co-op in the US, 26 million members. So how does it work?

• 8:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it is a very unique structure, right? And I think people interpret it a lot of different ways. But at the highest level, we don't have any shareholders. We are a private company, so we really rely on creating our own profit and our own cash flow. And we've got to be a profitable business and have a strong and healthy business for the model to work.

• 8:25Bob Safian?

  How does that impact your priorities? I mean, does that free you from the short-term pressures that publicly traded companies have? Or is it still there, just in a different wrapper?

• 8:35Speaker 01

  It's still there, but I would say not to the same extent, right? We're not doing quarterly earning calls. The board and I are very aligned of making sure we're setting the co-op up for sustainable, long-term growth. And it's nice to be able to make some decisions in that regard. It is important that we are creating profit and driving cash flow. Like, we still have to maintain success and healthiness as a business because.

• 8:59Bob Safian?

  Like, you're not a nonprofit, right? You're still supposed to grow and make money.

• 9:03Speaker 01

  For sure, we have to make money. And the way we think about it is the more profit we generate, the more we can put toward our purpose, right? And so it's really important and kind of a great challenge to make sure that we're doing both, and they really feed on each other. I'd say the other unique thing is we really are oriented towards our members and their needs. And so we spend a lot of time on, you know, how can we create really great experiences and benefits for our members? Because they are, even if they're not equity owners, they are part of the co-op and really, really important to what we do.

• 9:42Bob Safian?

  And the co-op members, do they pay like a membership fee, like my Costco membership?

• 9:48Speaker 01

  It's a little different. They pay a $30 fee for a lifetime membership. And so we're kind of constantly thinking about what can we help enable for our members for them to feel like that was a great investment. And that includes access to things like classes in our stores, includes extra benefits, like we just launched a partnership with Alltrails and it's going to allow our members to have discounted access to that program.

• 10:19Bob Safian?

  And when the business makes money, does it go back to the members?

• 10:25Speaker 01

  Part of being a member is getting a 10% dividend on your purchases. So that goes back to our members every year and it's a major benefit.

• 10:34Bob Safian?

  So they're getting the proceeds of the success of the business?

• 10:38Speaker 01

  That's right. That's right. They're not technically shareholders, but they do have such a vested interest. They hold us to a really high bar.

• 10:48Bob Safian?

  REI has values around community and sustainability and conservation. And recently, we've seen cuts to National Park Staff and government proposals for selling public lands. You may not want to be political, but customers and employees and members may expect you to advocate for REI's values. How do you think about that? Because that is a challenge for a lot of business leaders right now.

• 11:14Speaker 01

  What I love about REI is we have such strong values and a clear mission and we do use it to guide us. Sometimes that's more overt things we're doing, like giving money to certain organizations. But sometimes it's more of the behind the scenes things we're doing, like working with policymakers or through our Cooperative Action Network, we actually get people to write in letters to policymakers and to the government. And so we're doing things like that kind of constantly to just really support things like public lands that are so core to who we are and what we care about.

• 11:50Bob Safian?

  A lot of business leaders right now are cautious about engaging on topics that might attract attention from the White House, let's say.

• 11:58Speaker 01

  I understand that. And we certainly have to navigate that. But at the end of the day, we are a mission driven organization who is going to stand up for the things that we really believe in, like protecting public lands and access to public lands. So we will continue to do that advocacy kind of role.

• 12:17Bob Safian?

  I mean, early in your tenure, you chose to apologize for REI's previous support of Doug Berman for Interior Secretary.

• 12:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:26Bob Safian?

  That must have been a tricky calculation? Or was it not tricky?

• 12:30Speaker 01

  It was tricky in the sense that I was new and hadn't been part of the decision. And I was kind of coming into it and having to understand what the situation was. But I would say it became clear that the right thing to do was to rescind our support of him, because some of the things he supported were just at odds with who we are as a co-op. And yeah, so I went out publicly and just admitted that we had made the wrong call. And I think, as much as people were still angry with us that we had even gotten involved in that, I think they appreciated the transparency and the vulnerability of, hey, we're not going to get it right every time. And I think one thing it taught us is that we need to listen to

• 13:14Speaker 01

  our members and avoid doing things that are at odds with our values.

• 13:19Bob Safian?

  You know, you talk about the outdoors as a place where people can come together. And this is a time where we're increasingly divided. So access to public spaces and public lands, that's sort of an antidote to that division?

• 13:35Speaker 01

  Totally. Totally. It's a totally nonpartisan way to just come together and community is so important to us at REI. We spend a lot of our efforts of like, how do we create the right bridges and the right access points for people into the outdoors to really help their their mental health, their emotional health, their physical health? It really is a shared experience. And I think that's why people love doing it in community, too, and having the conversations with our green vests in our stores, because they have shared a lot of those experiences. And the emotion that comes with being outdoors is just really powerful.

• 14:16Bob Safian?

  First public action as CEO, break ties with the Trump administration Cabinet Secretary. MB knows that, given REI's co-op structure, she can't follow the classic playbook. So how is she resetting REI's retail priorities? And what's the deal with union bargaining that sparked a boycott earlier this year? We'll talk about that and more after the break. Stay with us.

• 14:44Bob Safian?

  We all know the disappointment that comes when a grand gesture falls flat, something that seemed impressive in the moment, but didn't deliver the results you expected. Marketing budgets too often fall into that trap, aiming for big impressions, big reach, but without the revenue to back it. LinkedIn has a name for it, Bull Spend. LinkedIn Ads generate the highest ROAS of all major ad networks. They target by company, industry, job title, and more. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn Ads and get a $250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com/Scale. That's LinkedIn.com/Scale. Terms and conditions apply.

• 15:27Bob Safian?

  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 creativeplanning.com/mastersofscale. Stripe Treasury is your new financial operating system built for what's next. With Stripe Treasury, the place your business accepts payments is also where you can store balances, move funds, and pay vendors worldwide. If you're

• 16:12Bob Safian?

  building for global scale, get a business bank account that lets your money move instantly, whenever and wherever you need it. Learn more at stripe.com/treasury. Stripe is not a bank. Banking services provided by Fifth Third Bank, National Association, Member FDIC.

• 16:33Bob Safian?

  Before the break, REI's Mary Beth Lawton talked about how the company's unusual co-op structure provides a long-term advantage. Now she talks about the near-term challenges in today's retail marketplace, what was behind a union-led boycott earlier this year, and how that squares with her priority on REI's in-store Green Vest staffers. Plus, lessons she's applying from her time at Sephora, Athleta, and Nike. Let's jump back in.

• 17:03Bob Safian?

  I'm mindful that in our discussion so far, it could almost sound like REI is a public service organization or something like that. But you're in the retail business.

• 17:16Speaker 01

  We're in the retail business. Yeah.

• 17:17Bob Safian?

  So tell me, like, what are you seeing in sort of where the retail business is now? What's hard about it? What's changing about it? How are consumers right now?

• 17:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, what I'm seeing in the retail space is, you know, consumers these days are loving both channels, right? They still are coming into our stores. They love the human interaction. And we've got to keep making that service really, really special and differentiated, especially in a digital world where people are on their phones a lot and shopping online. We have 200 stores in the US. On the digital side, I feel like we're really finding ways to make that experience not just transactional. I think consumers really want the digital experience to feel more akin to the store experience and be emotional and be personal. And actually bringing our Green Vest kind of recommendations

• 18:14Speaker 01

  onto our site and making that feel really seamless is something we're focused on, too.

• 18:19Bob Safian?

  If REI's advantage is its human expertise, which you keep going back to with the Green Vest, in the digital world, and particularly as AI starts to maybe change how we shop via AI agents, like, does that change that emphasis? Or just change the way it shows up?

• 18:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, I think it does. It is something we want to make sure that we are bringing to our customer wherever they're shopping with us. So, you know, things like our Green Vest now do videos of the products, really showcasing the product, talking about why they love it authentically. And we're showing those on the product pages on our website. And we really see great engagement with that. And I think our customer really loves it. For REI, this is a natural differentiator for us in a very digital world. And the AI shopping agents you mentioned, like, that is something we can really bring that's different.

• 19:16Bob Safian?

  Is promoting your brand or reaching customers different now digitally? And search works differently. You have to deal with chatbots. And are agents buying things on REI's site? Or you have your own agents helping customers buy things?

• 19:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, the way we think about it is like, you know, we want REI to be kind of top of mind wherever customers are. So if they are on, you know, one of the chat bots, we want to be discoverable there, right? We want REI to show up and be in the consideration set. And so we are spending a lot of time of like, how do we make sure that that happens so that we're still in that conversation?

• 20:02Bob Safian?

  Yeah, a lot of people are asking that question. How do I make sure that happens? Because it's hard to do.

• 20:06Speaker 01

  It's hard to do. And a lot of it is, how do you make sure your expertise and data are set up in the right way to be captured and be elevated in those experiences? We want people to see us as part of that conversation, even if they're not on REI.com. But then, at the same time, we also are doing a lot to make sure we're top of mind for customers, have them want to come to REI.com or into one of our stores or on our app directly versus have to always be in the chatbot world. So we're trying to make sure we have optionality across both and just be wherever customers want to be.

• 20:44Bob Safian?

  Yeah, I keep thinking with the AI bots, like, It's so tricky because you know, if you have too many of those bots hitting your site all the time, it's like it's a cost and it slows things down. And yet, at the same time, if you don't let them come, they won't be able to surface you in the things that they're showing.

• 21:02Speaker 01

  No, that's right. It is a new world and we've got to embrace it and not just keep fighting against it. You know, I think of AI as just a transformative thing that's happening. It's not like a technology rollout that's going to kind of stop and start. It's really going to affect everything we do in the coming years. And we've been talking internally of we need to find ways to embrace it. Our competition is, is using it. Our consumers are using it. We've got to be part of that. Of course, being REI, we've got to do it in a really responsible way and make sure we're thinking through the potential risks of it and being cautious in some ways. But I don't think we have a choice but to, to really be part of this movement.

• 21:46Speaker 01

  It's, it seems akin to me, similar to the dot com boom, you know, back in late 90s, early 2000s, where people were worried about how that was really going to take hold and dominate everything. And I think the brands that really embraced it and got ahead of it ended up being, you know, more successful. And I feel like we're in a similar time right now.

• 22:10Bob Safian?

  And if, if that costs you something in the near term, that's just the cost of doing business these days.

• 22:16Speaker 01

  It is. I mean, we'll do what we can to, to help ourselves there, but I think there is an element of that. It's, it's a cost of doing business these days. And if, if we put our head in the sand, we're just going to be left behind, you know?

• 22:29Bob Safian?

  I mean, it also ends up for a lot of folks raising new questions about the cost of human talent. I know earlier this year, there was a boycott of, you know, of some of your goods by 70,000 REI co-op members at the request of union members. Can you explain what that's about and where that came from and maybe where it's going?

• 22:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, you know, we're, we're in bargaining with our unions and have been. And that's just a, it's a difficult and emotional situation. We certainly are continuing to bargain in good faith. I can't speak to what's happening at the table. That's, that's what's happening there. But what I will say is that, you know, we continue to show up and listen and will continue to do that. But these types of things like the boycott are unfortunate because in that case, they were trying to boycott our sale, which actually helps put dollars in our employees' pockets, right? When we do better as a business, we give higher bonuses. And so it kind of was counterintuitive and it's just unfortunate, but I know there's

• 23:36Speaker 01

  a lot of emotion involved with that.

• 23:39Bob Safian?

  Do you feel like because you're a co-op, your, your members hold REI to a different standard maybe than, than they would a different kind of company?

• 23:47Speaker 01

  I do think so. I do think so. You know, part of my job, or an important part of my job, I feel like is helping listen to those members and really understand what they're saying. We can't always give members everything they want, right? Because we do have to run a business. We do need to be healthy. We need to be profitable. And sometimes that means making some difficult choices to enable the co-op to, to live for another 88 years, you know, or 88 years old this year. So part of it is listening. Part of it is just being transparent around what we are able to do and, and what we aren't able to do and having that conversation with members. Because I, I do think they, they understandably, you know, ask a lot of us.

• 24:30Speaker 01

  They feel really invested in the co-op, which is such a great thing overall. Yeah.

• 24:36Bob Safian?

  But isn't always easy.

• 24:37Speaker 01

  But it's not always easy.

• 24:39Bob Safian?

  It's not always easy.

• 24:40Speaker 01

  No, for sure.

• 24:41Bob Safian?

  The retail landscape has been dominated over the last couple of decades. It's like, how do we make shopping frictionless? Make it easier and easier and easier. And yet sometimes, I don't know, the human element, I guess I wonder whether in some ways, RE is trying to keep some of that friction in, that there's value in some of that friction?

• 25:03Speaker 01

  Uh, I don't know if I, if I characterize it as friction that we're trying to keep in because we actually spend a lot of time and effort of like, how do we remove friction for our customers? Because at the end of the day, they want it to be easy. They want it to be intuitive. But to the human point, I do think that to most of our customers is such a benefit because it feels different than, you know, a lot of retail these days. And so it is something we continue to focus on. There are some things that AI just can't do, right? And one of them is like the lived experience of our green vest. Like they have actually climbed a mountain or gone on a hike, you know? AI hasn't done that.

• 25:43Speaker 01

  And that's something that's really, really special that we want to hold on to and feel like will really help us going forward.

• 25:51Bob Safian?

  I mentioned early on that you were a leader at Nike before you came over. You'd been the CEO of Athleta, you're senior leader at Sephora. Are there different lessons from each of those experiences that you draw on?

• 26:08Speaker 01

  I do feel like I've taken away so much from each place I've been. I was at Sephora during kind of the 2012 to 20th, 20 ish range. And that was during the height of YouTube taking off and the makeup category exploding. I was running the digital business at the time. And when I came in, it was like $250 million business and we grew it to over a billion during the time I was there. We were really ahead of the curve from an innovation standpoint. We got, you know, ahead of the mobile kind of curve and really started shifting resources from desktop over to mobile a lot sooner than some of our competitors and some other brands.

• 26:53Speaker 01

  And I think I learned a lot about how important it is to kind of see around the corner of where the customer is going and not necessarily have to be kind of leading edge on everything. You can be a fast follower, but you have to be in the game enough so that you're not left behind. And I think that's helping me even today as we were talking about with this whole AI transformation.

• 27:18Bob Safian?

  You don't have to be a first mover, but you gotta, you gotta get in the game when you see a move.

• 27:23Speaker 01

  You gotta get in the game and you've got to move quickly on certain things and not just drag your, you know, your heels on everything because you'll be left behind. And then Athleta, I would say the biggest thing there is I really loved how mission-driven Athleta was. It's a B Corp and really clear in its mission and values. And I learned how to be a leader who can both drive high growth. So we, we drove a ton of growth during the time I was there. It was during COVID, but also stay true to your mission and values and that it's not a, a trade-off, one or the other. They really can coexist. And I, I've taken a lot away from that. That's really applied, obviously at REI.

• 28:04Bob Safian?

  I talked to a CEO at one point who said, you know, your missions and values, like you only really know them when you sacrifice making money in order to stay true to them. That otherwise it's just a preference. It's not really a value. Were there choices like that that you found you had to make at Athleta?

• 28:23Speaker 01

  There definitely were. One is we put a big effort around inclusive sizing at our stores and our digital channels. And just as a business, we really embraced that because we were really around inclusivity was a core value. And even though that increased our product costs, we didn't change the price to the customer and that was a conscious choice that we made. I think overall, what I've learned is that, you know, if you stick to your values as a company and a brand, people really do appreciate that. And that pays off in dividends in other ways with their loyalty and their engagement with the brand, so.

• 29:03Bob Safian?

  Yeah, it's harder to track maybe on a, on a traditional P and L KPI basis, but that doesn't mean it doesn't pay off in the long run.

• 29:11Speaker 01

  That's right. And I think it helps preserve the brand and what makes it special for the long run, which is so important.

• 29:18Bob Safian?

  And so then, then you, you went over to Nike, which is a very different kind of place.

• 29:23Speaker 01

  Yes, very, very different. I had actually spent almost 10 years at Nike at the beginning of my career. What I really took away from both times I was at Nike is just that you're preserving what makes the brand special. And I think Nike has learned some lessons about when that slips, right?

• 29:41Bob Safian?

  So you've got that Nike experience and Athleta and Sephora. Now you're sort of bringing them all together. What's at stake right now for REI?

• 29:50Speaker 01

  You know, the biggest thing at stake, I think, is making sure we can be around for another 88 years. How do we recreate a long-term, sustainable co-op that is healthy, that is, you know, continues to, to leverage our, our strength and our heritage around serving members, doesn't lose sight of our mission and values. It is a tricky equation, but I think, you know, what's so amazing about REI is just that the passion of the people, whether it's our employees or our members. And that just gives me the faith that we will, we will get to that really healthy place again financially and do so much good for the world as well.

• 30:34Bob Safian?

  Well, this was great. Thanks so much for doing it.

• 30:36Speaker 01

  Thanks, Bob.

• 30:38Bob Safian?

  I may not know what climbing a 14er is, but it's pretty clear, listening to MB, that she knows the trail ahead won't be easy. She's got to rally the business financially and to rally the REI team of in-store green vests that's core to her strategy. Her experiences at Nike and Sephora are on point. Nike is struggling to refine its momentum. Sephora thrived during MB's time there, in part because it embraced new mobile tech as we all need to today with AI. But it's the Athleta experience that keeps coming back to me, the focus on mission and values as a differentiator. REI has lasted 88 years because its co-op structure provides clarity of purpose.

• 31:21Bob Safian?

  In a world where things are changing so fast, that clarity is a secret weapon, helping us to identify what to react to and how, when the road ahead just keeps getting steeper. I'm Bob Safian. Thanks for listening.

• 31:44Speaker 00

  Every business hits the same wall the moment your business outgrows the systems that got you here. Spreadsheets everywhere, five different logins, data scattered across entities that don't even talk to each other. If your finance team spends more time finding data than using it, that's when you need the Intuit ERP. Intuit Enterprise Suite is the AI-native ERP solution that's powerful, painless, and proven, built for businesses scaling fast without the complexity that usually comes with it. From the makers of QuickBooks, learn more at intuit.com/erp.

• 32:24Speaker 03

  Humans will never be more intelligent than AI.

• 32:27Speaker 04

  There's going to be two types of companies. Those who are great at AI and those that went out of business because they weren't.

• 32:32Speaker 05

  How do we build a future that is human-centered?

• 32:38Speaker 06

  I'm Rana Elkhauyubi. 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.

• 33:07Bob Safian?

  Hey, listeners, Bob here. If you listen to Rapid Response on massive 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 topics 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.

• 33:45Bob Safian?

  Rapid Response is a Wait What original. I'm Bob Safian. Our executive producer is Eve Trow. Our senior producer is Alex Morris, and our associate producer is Masha Makutonina. Mixing and mastering by Aaron Bastinelli and Brian Pugh. Our theme music is by Ryan Holiday. For more, visit rapidresponseshow.com.