Selects: How Black Friday Works
Josh Clark and Charles W. "Chuck" Bryant examine the origins, evolution, and current state of Black Friday in the United States. They trace how the day after Thanksgiving became associated with holiday shopping through department store parades, how the term "Black Friday" arose from Philadelphia police and transportation workers, and how retailers later reshaped its meaning into a profit narrative. The hosts discuss the economics of holiday retail, doorbuster tactics and their risks, violent and deadly crowd incidents, worker and scheduling issues around Thanksgiving openings, and counter-movements like Buy Nothing Day and China's Singles Day.
Dying Is Easy. Retail Is Hard. (Update)
This episode examines the troubled state of Macy's and the broader retail industry through conversations with Macy's CEO Tony Spring, retail veteran and academic Mark Cohen, and author-entrepreneur Jeff Kinney. Spring lays out his Bold New Chapter turnaround plan, including major store closures, real estate monetization, merchandise overhauls, and attempts to translate the marketing power of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade into better in-store experiences. Cohen sharply criticizes Macy's past strategies and questions the viability of the turnaround, while Kinney offers a contrasting example of place-based, community-focused retail through his unprofitable but culturally influential independent bookstore and downtown redevelopment project in Plainville, Massachusetts.
Is Macy's Thanksgiving Parade Its Most Valuable Asset? (Update)
The episode investigates the hidden economics and logistics of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, focusing on how it is produced, who pays for what, and what value it creates for Macy's, NBC, and New York City. Executive producer Will Koss, NBC executive Jen Neal, city officials, and author Jeff Kinney describe the year‑round production process, brand sponsorships, balloon design and fabrication, helium supply, security, and sanitation. Despite assembling many details, the show concludes that the true costs and financial arrangements around the parade remain largely opaque, and it tees up a second episode on Macy's broader retail challenges.
Hydro Flask: Travis Rosbach. How a thirsty surfer changed the water bottle industry
Travis Rosbach explains how dissatisfaction with existing reusable bottles led him to create Hydro Flask, a double-wall vacuum-insulated stainless steel water bottle. He describes his path through earlier businesses in fencing and sign-making, the technical and logistical challenges of developing manufacturing in China, and the scrappy early days selling bottles at markets and into retailers. The episode follows the company's rapid growth, financing crises, the arrival of an outside investor, and Travis's eventual decision to leave Hydro Flask.
Advice Line with Anthony Casalena of Squarespace
In this Advice Line episode of How I Built This Lab, host Guy Raz and Squarespace founder and CEO Anthony Casalena answer questions from three early-stage founders. They first discuss how Squarespace has evolved, including its role in a changing AI-driven web and its AI-enabled features. Then they advise a custom mattress entrepreneur, a clean first-aid brand founder, and the creator of an eating-disorder recovery app on branding, distribution, go-to-market strategies, and leveraging early users, before Anthony shares a key retrospective lesson on following his gut faster.
Days of our Tariffs
Planet Money uses producer James Sneed's surprise tariff bill on a collectible Arthur toy to illustrate how modern tariffs hit individual consumers, including unexpected brokerage fees and customs processes. Trade lawyer Lenny Feldman explains how changes to the de minimis exemption and importer-of-record rules push more tariff and processing costs onto buyers, while economist Alberto Cavallo shows, using large-scale price data, that recent tariffs have raised imported-goods prices by about 6%, domestic-goods prices by about 3.5%, and overall inflation by roughly 0.7 percentage points. The episode concludes that U.S. consumers are clearly paying for tariffs, often in ways that are not visible at the time of purchase.
TIP769: How Home Depot's Founders Built a $300 Billion Company from the Ground Up w/ Kyle Grieve
Host Kyle Grieve provides a narrative deep dive into the origins and growth of Home Depot, drawing heavily from the founders' book "Built from Scratch". He traces Bernie Marcus and Arthur Blank's early careers, their firing from Handy Dan, the creation of the Home Depot concept, the role of key partners like Ken Langone and Pat Farah, and the company's early financing and expansion challenges. The episode then examines Home Depot's competitive strategy, supplier relationships, management philosophy, and long-term performance, extracting lessons for entrepreneurs and investors about culture, pricing, competition, and disciplined growth.
Advice Line with Tariq Farid of Edible Arrangements
This advice-line episode features Edible Arrangements founder Tariq Farid joining host Guy Raz to answer real-time questions from three entrepreneurs. Tariq first shares an update on Edible Arrangements, including generational leadership transition, brand reinvention, and navigating the emerging "edibles" space. Callers then seek advice on educating consumers about Filipino banana ketchup, naming a highly sustainable polar expedition company, and scaling a service-focused screen printing business from $3M to $5M in revenue without losing its culture.
Magnolia: Chip & Joanna Gaines. From House Flipping to Household Name
Guy Raz interviews Chip and Joanna Gaines about how they built Magnolia from a small Waco, Texas home goods shop and house-flipping operation into a large lifestyle brand. They trace their journeys from childhood and early scrappy businesses through near-bankruptcy during the housing crisis, the rise of Fixer Upper, and the creation of Magnolia Market at the Silos and their media ventures. They also describe hard decisions like closing Joanna's first shop and ending Fixer Upper, how their faith and partnership guided them, and how they're thinking about the next decade of their lives and business.
Faherty Brand: Alex and Mike Faherty. How Jersey Shore + Manhattan Chic grew to 80 stores.
Twin brothers Mike and Alex Faherty describe how a high-school dream of blending surf culture with Manhattan-quality fashion became Faherty, a surf-inspired clothing brand with around 80 U.S. stores and roughly a quarter of a billion dollars in sales. They walk through their deliberate 12-year preparation period, early careers in fashion and finance, the decision to pursue a multi-channel model combining wholesale, e-commerce, and retail, and scrappy tactics like a mobile beach house store and a print catalog. The conversation covers cashflow struggles, a pivotal hero product, the impact of COVID on their business, rapid store expansion, family dynamics, and their desire to keep Faherty a long-term family-run brand.
BOARD GAMES 2: Making our prototype
Planet Money follows its collaboration with Exploding Kittens as they turn an economic concept into a playable board game prototype. The team settles on the "Market for Lemons" idea about asymmetric information, watches Exploding Kittens discover and refine a simple but engaging deal-making mechanic, and wrestles with balancing economic education, fun, and manufacturing constraints. They then test the prototype with game consultant Jamie Wolanski and invite listeners to download and playtest a printable version to help refine the game.
Advice Line with Tony Xu of Doordash
This Advice Line episode of How I Built This features DoorDash co-founder and CEO Tony Hsu joining Guy Raz to coach three early-stage founders through strategic decisions. They discuss when to expand a product line beyond the core offering, how to think about raising capital versus using debt while maintaining control of a growing CPG brand, and how a small, mission-driven meat company can differentiate and educate consumers in a crowded "grass-fed" market. Tony also reflects on DoorDash's evolution, his approach to managing stress, and what he wishes he'd known as a first-time founder.
BOARD GAMES 1: We're making a game
Planet Money goes inside the modern board game industry as they embark on creating their own economics-themed tabletop game. They follow the journey of first-time designer and publisher Leonie Grundler, whose game Biome became a Kickstarter hit, and then meet Exploding Kittens co-creator Alon Lee to explore whether their game should be a complex Eurogame or a mass-market party game. Along the way, they unpack crowdfunding, manufacturing, tariffs, and the importance of core game mechanics while setting up a partnership to develop a smart but broadly appealing party game.