How I Built This with Guy Raz

Guy Raz is one of the best interviewers in podcasting, and How I Built This is the proof. Each episode features a long-form conversation with the founder of a well-known company, tracing the full arc from scrappy beginnings to the business you recognize today. We are talking about the people behind Airbnb, Spanx, Patagonia, Instagram, and hundreds more. Raz has a talent for getting founders past the rehearsed origin story and into the messy, uncertain moments where things almost fell apart. The show runs about 45 minutes to an hour, dropping new episodes on Mondays and Thursdays. With over 820 episodes and nearly 30,000 ratings (4.7 stars), it is one of the most popular business podcasts in the world. The format is straightforward — it is essentially a biography told through conversation — but Raz's warmth and genuine curiosity keep it from feeling formulaic. What makes How I Built This stand out from the flood of entrepreneur interview shows is the emphasis on failure and doubt. Founders regularly talk about the moments they were broke, rejected by every investor, or convinced the whole thing was going to collapse. Those stretches of honest vulnerability are what separate this from a press tour. The production is polished (it started at NPR before moving to Wondery), and there is a recurring "How You Built That" segment featuring everyday inventors. Fair warning: the ad breaks can be frequent, which some listeners find annoying. But the content between them is consistently strong.