Running a business can be a lonely job. The long hours, the existential threats — it can feel like the weight of the entire company is on your back. That’s where the transformative power of co-founders comes in. Co-founders provide more than added manpower; they bring fresh perspectives and talents that help businesses conquer problems at speed. And the co-founder effect extends beyond the people who started the company: The lessons hold true for every team member that contributes in a foundational way. The more voices you add, the more resilience you build in yourself, and your organization.

What can an entrepreneur learn from a world-class musician? How to create a world-class team, and unite around a clear mission. In this special crossover episode with our sister podcast, Spark & Fire, you’ll hear world-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma tell the story of co-founding The Silk Road Project — a musical collective that brings together musicians from wildly different traditions to write and perform original music.

Some aspects of your brand will be defined by what customers tell you; others, by what you tell them. In their stories of how they scaled Warby Parker from scrappy e-commerce site to comprehensive eyewear and eye care juggernaut, co-founder and co-CEOs Neil Blumenthal and Dave Gilboa give a master class in how to articulate crystal-clear brand values while also building and iterating based on fast customer feedback. Their lesson? Branding isn’t static. It’s a conversation.

Can a small entrepreneur make an impact within a massive, complex system, like healthcare or education? What’s the best framework to amplify the positive side of having co-founders and avoid the negatives? Reid Hoffman and Bob Safian answer these and more questions from small business owners in the Masters of Scale community. Plus: in our Need to Know segment, Reid & Bob take on a burning question: How can Black founders beat the odds and find funding?

Creative energy is the raw fuel of entrepreneurship, but if you fail to direct that energy effectively, you risk chasing multiple ideas and delivering none. Tony Fadell learned this lesson time and again through his journey to co-create the iPod, iPhone, and Nest. He shares how he struck the tricky balance of channeling his creative experimentation into world-changing products.

Amid pandemic disruption, Chief turned a small, NYC-based club for women executives into a national phenomenon with more than 12,000 members. Co-founder and CEO Carolyn Childers shares how she and co-founder Lindsay Kaplan managed the transformation, which recently yielded a $100 million Series B funding round for a whole new set of tools to support business leaders.

Watching the news out of Ukraine, Tokunbo Koiki saw reports of Black students struggling to flee the country. Tokunbo, an entrepreneur and social worker, linked up with two strangers, Patricia Daley and Korrine Sky, to build an aid organization for Black refugees — in a single weekend. Black Women for Black Lives helped some 1,200 Black students with direct assistance, a perfect illustration of how entrepreneurial thinking can mobilize action faster than you think it can.

Throughout her career, Natalie Massenet has proved her ability to spot – and act on – a trend. Natalie and Reid share tactics about how to deliver the future to consumers, manage pushback, and navigate uncharted territory.

How do you expand to a country where you’re not located? What was the insight that led Reid from entrepreneur to investor? Host Reid Hoffman answers seven burning questions; and gives advice to a recent grad who wants to change the world.

Unconventional ideas can fuel scale dreams — but they also attract naysayers. When Katia Beauchamp, co-founder and CEO of Birchbox, introduced her idea of subscription beauty boxes, she knew this novel business model went against beauty-industry norms — and was hard for some tech-focused investors to connect with. To woo investors, suppliers and customers, Katia learned to describe her industry-flipping idea in conventional terms, connecting on common ground.

At Warby Parker, planning for the future has meant leaning into the present — from physical changes in their factory and stores that ensure social distancing to optimizing online vision tests. In May 2020, co-founder Neil Blumenthal shares their process for decision-making.

In part two of this special two-part episode with Bill Gates, we’re talking about the biggest success story ever told on the podcast – and not just for Bill Gates, but for humanity. And it was achieved not through Microsoft, but through the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Bill & Melinda Gates have built the foundation into one of the world’s single largest private philanthropies and they’ve done it by taking lessons learned at Microsoft – on how to massively capitalize on inflection points – and applied them to the nonprofit world. Here’s how.