Guy Raz

Guy Raz is an acclaimed radio and podcast personality, described by The New York Times as “one of the most popular podcasters in history.” Perhaps his best-known show, How I Built This, features in-depth interviews with the world’s greatest innovators, entrepreneurs, and idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built. The show has been lauded by media outlets including the New York Times, Inc, Fortune, the Washington Post, and was recently named one of the ten podcasts that shaped the decade by Harper’s Bazaar. Raz has also been a featured guest on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon several times.

In addition to being the creator and host of How I Built This, Guy is also the co-creator and co-host of NPR’s first-ever podcast for kids, Wow In The World, the creator and host of Spotify’s The Rewind and Luminary’s Wisdom From The Top, and the co-creator and former host of NPR’s TED Radio Hour. His shows are heard by more than 19 million people each month around the world and he is the first person to ever have three shows in the top 20 on the Apple Podcast charts.

His first book, How I Built This: The Unexpected Paths to Success from the World’s Most Inspiring Entre preneurs, will be released on September 15th, 2020. Based on his highly acclaimed podcast, the book o ers priceless insights and inspiration from the world’s top entrepreneurs on how to start, launch, and build a successful venture.

Raz began his career at NPR in 1997 as an intern for All Things Considered and worked virtually every job in the newsroom—from temporary production assistant to breaking news anchor. His first job was the assistant to NPR’s legendary news analyst Daniel Schorr.

In 2000, at the age of 25, Raz was appointed as NPR’s Berlin bureau chief, where he covered Eastern Europe and the Balkans. During his six years abroad, Raz reported on everything from wars and conflicts to sports and entertainment. He reported from more than 50 countries, covering the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Macedonia, and the ongoing conflict in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Raz later served as NPR’s bureau chief in London, and between 2004-2006 he left NPR to work in television as CNN’s Jerusalem correspondent. During this time, Raz chronicled the rise of Hamas as a political power, the incapacitation of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and Israel’s 2005 withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. In 2006, Raz returned to NPR to serve as defense correspondent where he covered the Pentagon and the U.S. military.

Following a year-long sabbatical as a Nieman journalism fellow at Harvard University, Raz became the weekend host of NPR News’ signature afternoon newsmagazine All Things Considered. During his tenure, he transformed the sound and format of the program, introducing the now-signature “cover story” and creating the popular “Three-Minute Fiction” writing contest. During this time, Raz anchored live coverage on some of the biggest stories in recent years, including the killing of Osama bin Laden, the Newtown School Shootings, and the 2012 presidential election.

In 2013, Raz left the news-world to become the co-creator of TED Radio Hour. By exploring the biggest questions of our time with the help of the world’s greatest thinkers, TED Radio Hour quickly became a staple in NPR’s array of podcasts and iTunes called it the “Best New Audio Podcast.”

In 2015, Raz created How I Built This. Each episode is a narrative journey marked by triumphs, failures, serendipity, and resilience — told by the founders of some of the world’s best-known compa nies and brands. The success of the show has prompted The New York Times to call Raz “the biggest name in business podcasts.”

In 2016, Raz and his co-host, Mindy Thomas, founded their children’s production company, Tinker cast, and launched NPR’s first-ever podcast for kids, Wow In The World, which quickly became a top children’s podcast and is a two-time Parent’s Choice Gold Award winner. In 2018, Raz debuted the Spotify original series The Rewind, which takes listeners inside the minds of today’s biggest music stars, including David Guetta, Kelly Clarkson, and Shawn Mendes. In 2019, Raz launched a new podcast on the Luminary podcast network platform—Wisdom From The Top—which is a biographical journey into the lives and minds of the greatest business managers and leaders in the world.

At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Raz began the How I Built This Resilience series: twice-weekly live video interviews with founders to discuss how the pandemic has a ected their business models and philosophies as leaders. He also co-created a new daily kids podcast, Two Whats and a Wow.

Over the course of his career as a correspondent and subsequently a host, Raz has interviewed and profiled more than 6,000 people from all walks of life, including Richard Branson, Sara Blakely, Howard Schultz, Shawn Mendes, Charlie Puth, Marissa Meyer, Melinda Gates, Christopher Hitchens, Condoleezza Rice, Jimmy Carter, Shimon Peres, General David Petraeus, Al Gore, Mark Zuckerberg, Eminem, Taylor Swift, and many, many others. Raz has also been on the other side of the microphone as a frequent guest on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and he has been profiled by The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Inc., The Today Show, and Forbes.

Raz has been awarded the Edward R. Murrow Award, National Headliner Award, NABJ award, and the Daniel Schorr Journalism prize; his reporting has contributed to two duPont awards and one Peabody awarded to NPR; and he has been a finalist for the Livingston Award four times. He has served as a Ferris professor of journalism at Princeton University, a Shapiro fellow at George Washington University, and an adjunct professor of journalism at Georgetown.

Most importantly, Raz is a father. He’s taught preschoolers how to conduct radio interviews, performed in children’s theater as the narrator in Cat in the Hat, helped design the local playground in his neigh borhood, and coached and cheered on his sons’ baseball and soccer teams.