Episodes
Jen and Wendy Yuengling are two of the four sisters in charge of the Yuengling beer company. Their father, Dick, took over the family business back in 1985. He was the one who turned it from a local brewery into America’s largest independent craft brewery—last year it produced more than 2 million barrels of beer. Now it’s his daughters’ turn to take the business in new directions, and they're rising to the challenge.
Published 09/14/18
Pnina Tornai never imagined she’d become one of the world’s most sought-after bridal gown designers. She spent most of her childhood dreaming of becoming an actress, but by the time she was in her early twenties, that dream felt far-fetched. She was a single mom, struggling to support herself and stay healthy. Tornai pulled herself out of that slump by relying on her unshakeable faith in the possibility of a better future. Now, her gowns are popular around the world, and she and her work are...
Published 09/07/18
Jeff Raider is the cofounder and co-CEO of the razor company Harry’s, an online subscription service that sends high-end razors to customers at a low cost. The company raised $112 million earlier this year to move the brand beyond shaving to include all kinds of men's grooming products. Before cofounding Harry's, Raider also pioneered the eyewear company Warby Parker, which became successful using a similar model of online retail. Raider's focus is on building brands he'd like to use in his...
Published 08/31/18
Success means something different to everyone, including the world's top company founders, executives, and CEOs. In this Master Class episode of "This is Success," we revisit some of the most interesting answers to the question at the heart of our show: how do you define success and stay on track to get there?
Published 08/24/18
Alli Webb is the cofounder and visionary behind Drybar, the hugely popular blowout salon that took a regional trend mainstream. Today, Drybar is a multi-million dollar business with more than 100 locations across North America. But it started out as a side gig for Webb, who went door-to-door delivering blowouts while her kids were at school.
Published 08/17/18
Caroline Hirsch has discovered or helped develop some of comedy’s biggest names—people like Jerry Seinfeld, Jon Stewart, Dave Chappelle, and Michelle Wolf. She's the namesake and cofounder of the iconic New York comedy club Carolines, and the visionary behind the New York Comedy Festival. But when she got into the business in 1982, Hirsch’s only qualification was a love of standup.
Published 08/10/18
Adena Friedman has the top job at Nasdaq, one of the world's biggest stock exchanges. Early in her career, she learned how to impress her bosses by taking initiative, and when she became the boss, she found ways to make the whole company more efficient. Friedman tells us about competing with the New York Stock Exchange and shares her thoughts on cryptocurrency.
Published 08/03/18
This week, we feature the first episode of Business Insider's new podcast, "Household Name," which you can find on Apple Podcasts or your favorite app. Before TGI Fridays was the suburban strip mall staple it is today, it was a wild place in Manhattan, and likely the first singles bar in America. "Household Name" brings you surprising stories behind our biggest, household name brands. Host Dan Bobkoff finds tales of tragedy, love, strange histories, unintended consequences, and accidental...
Published 07/27/18
Ryan Serhant moved to New York City when he was 22, hoping to launch a career on Broadway. When that dream didn’t pan out, he found a different route into show business—as a real estate agent. Serhant is now the star of Bravo’s reality TV show “Million Dollar Listing” and the Serhant Team is one of the top real estate groups in the United States.
Published 07/20/18
Marie Forleo is a life and business coach with hundreds of thousands of followers online. When she first started giving strangers advice almost 20 years ago, Forleo barely had her own life together. She was working two jobs to scrape by, and when she wasn’t bartending or teaching dance, she collected emails for her newsletter. As Forleo’s business grew and she learned what it took to be an entrepreneur, she shared those lessons with her audience. Today she’s managed to incorporate all of her...
Published 07/13/18
You may know Bethenny Frankel from her lead role on the "Real Housewives of New York." But her name is also the driving force behind an expanding empire of brands. She’s the brain behind Skinnygirl cocktails—a company she sold in 2011 for $100 million. And in her spare time she runs B Strong, a charity which provided disaster relief aid to Puerto Ricans after Hurricane Maria. Frankel says she doesn’t always have a grand plan, but she knows a good opportunity when she sees one.
Published 07/06/18
For more than a decade, Eddy Lu tried to find the next big thing. Golf apparel, 99-cent smartphone apps, Japanese desserts — they all flopped, but he wasn’t headed back to the Wall Street world he left. Then he got into high-end sneakers, with an online marketplace called GOAT— as in “greatest of all time,” like they say in sports and rap. Today GOAT is the world’s biggest sneaker resale market. It has over $100 million in funding, seven million users, more than 300 employees, and 400,000...
Published 06/29/18
Sylvia Acevedo is a trailblazer in business and tech. She was one of the first Hispanic students to get a master's in engineering from Stanford, she worked for years as a Silicon Valley executive, and on top of that, she's an actual rocket scientist. As CEO of Girl Scouts, Acevedo is reinventing the organization to focus on STEM—science, technology, engineering, and math—and she hopes more young women will follow in her footsteps. Boy Scouts may now be recruiting girls too, but she says it'll...
Published 06/22/18
David Sedaris built a career by sharing his life through essays. He writes about everything from the death of family members to his love of picking up garbage, and his performances are both heart wrenching and hilarious. His comedy albums have been nominated for Grammys, and his books have sold more than 10 million copies. And while he likes the attention, it’s never been what drives him.
Published 06/15/18
Katherine Power worked for years to land her dream job at Condé Nast. But when an offer came, she turned it down. Instead, she joined with a friend to start what became Clique Brands. It includes a mix of companies, like fashion blog Who, What, Wear and a clothing line at Target. Since 2006, Clique has grown to 220 employees and raised $28 million. But before she managed a fashion and media empire, Katherine worked as a dancer in the first Austin Powers movie. And that’s where she made her...
Published 06/08/18
Dan Gilbert runs a Midwestern empire. In Michigan, he founded Quicken Loans, which made him a billionaire. Now he’s trying to rebuild downtown Detroit. But you may know him as the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, LeBron James’ NBA team. Our host, Rich Feloni, went to Detroit in early May to meet with Gilbert after getting a tour of his properties downtown. All of his real estate is under a company called Bedrock, which is part of Gilbert's larger parent company, called Rock Ventures.
Published 06/01/18
Sallie Krawcheck has run Smith Barney, Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, US Trust, and Citi Private Bank, and was Citi’s CFO before that. Now she runs Ellevest, an investment firm that helps women create wealth. She may have been regularly referred to in the media as “the most powerful woman on Wall Street,” but that brought its own challenges. Krawcheck tells us what she learned from navigating the boys club of finance, working through the financial crisis, and dealing with two highly...
Published 05/25/18
Sam Yagan knows he’s been lucky. He tells us that one of the luckiest moments of his life was meeting his college roommates. Together, they built a study guide website called SparkNotes. Then, they built an online dating empire. They started the site OKCupid while Yagan was getting his MBA at Stanford. Yagan is now the CEO of ShopRunner, but he’s best known for his 7-year tenure as the head of the Match Group, which includes OkCupid, Match.com, and Tinder. He says it was his Syrian immigrant...
Published 05/18/18
For Jocko Willink, becoming a Navy SEAL was just like any other career. Willink was the commander of SEAL Team 3, Task Unit Bruiser. It was the most highly decorated US special operations unit of the Iraq War — and the one where Chris Kyle, of “American Sniper,” served. Willink retired from the SEALs in 2010 and started a consulting company called Echelon Front, which he founded with another SEAL named Leif Babin. He and Babin co-wrote the bestselling book “Extreme Ownership” in 2014. He’s...
Published 05/11/18
Business Insider's US Editor-in-Chief Alyson Shontell was in Berlin last week for the 3rd annual Axel Springer Award, which was an evening honoring Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos. Bezos sat down with Axel Springer CEO Dr. Mathias Dopfner to talk about his career and future ambitions. (Axel Springer is Business Insider's parent company.) After an intro from Fiat Chrysler chairman John Elkann, Jeff and Mathias spoke about Amazon, and Jeff's investments in journalism and space exploration....
Published 05/04/18
If you’ve verified you’re not a robot online, you’ve used something Luis von Ahn has created. He tells "Success! How I Did It," that he doesn’t read stories about himself, and he’s probably the only CEO our host, Rich Feloni, has ever interviewed who believably says he doesn’t care about money. Von Ahn is the CEO of Duolingo, a popular language learning app. He’s also one of the guys who developed CAPTCHA, those online tests that ask you to type in a word or series of letters when you buy...
Published 04/27/18
Don Katz sounds more like a college English professor than a tech CEO: he’s obsessed with literature and writing. And it’s why he started Audible, the audiobook company now owned by Amazon, in 1995. It was all about the stories, and it was all about the voice of the stories. Katz certainly knows how to run a tech company well, but his passion above all else is storytelling. He was one of the earliest writers for Rolling Stone, where he covered terrorism and revolutions around the world. He...
Published 04/20/18
Tina Brown gets things done. She’s been a leader since her mid-20s, and she’s built the teams that transformed Vanity Fair and the New Yorker. She also created The Daily Beast. Brown grew up in England and became a media mogul in New York. Editors and writers have often questioned her most ambitious plans, but her resume is marked by major successes. A huge exception is a short-lived media brand called Talk that she launched with, of all people, Harvey Weinstein. Today she runs the Women in...
Published 04/13/18
Cecile Richards has never shied away from controversy. In seventh grade, she got sent to the principal’s office for protesting the Vietnam War. As President of Planned Parenthood, she defended the organization in a heated 2015 congressional hearing. Planned Parenthood is a healthcare provider that offers a long list of services, including cancer screenings and STI treatment. It also provides abortions and birth control services, which has made it one of the most controversial institutions in...
Published 04/06/18
Anjali Sud has always sought opportunities that seem intimidating. That inspired her to leave Flint, Michigan at 14 for the elite Massachusetts boarding school Phillips Academy on a scholarship. And it led her to become the CEO of Vimeo at 34. Vimeo is an ad-free video platform for filmmakers, and the videos on Vimeo are generally more highly produced than those on YouTube. Sud worked at Vimeo for three years before getting the CEO job in July 2017. It was an opportunity she told me she...
Published 03/30/18