Dungeons & Dragons, the tabletop role-playing game, turns 50 this year. As a lifelong lover of the game, host Reid Hoffman asked fellow D&D player and Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks to join him for a conversation about the entrepreneurial lessons they each learned from the game, how Hasbro is scaling the legacy brand to new heights, and the ways technology is unlocking new levels of creative and business opportunities.

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We’ve rounded up the most definitive business lessons of 2024, as heard on Rapid Response. Drawn from standout guests like will.i.am, Airbnb’s Brian Chesky, Salesforce’s Marc Benioff, and more, these moments not only offer takeaways from tech to entertainment, they provide a roadmap for challenges ahead in 2025. Our curated collection of insights in leadership and creative problem-solving is drawn from a half-dozen of our favorite conversations, with lasting lessons to navigate uncertainty and drive success. 

Watch the interviews featured in today's episode:

Will.i.am: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7XBPgrfiDo

Dara Treseder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3bazq03QNkQ

Janice Min: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwK3FkAufU8

Marc Benioff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CgjKMRMURc

Joanna Strober: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXEHeCPuBI8

Brian Chesky: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fvhh4U2_EFE

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As the founder and CEO of the Future Today Institute, Amy Webb helps global companies and governments see what comes next. She’s an expert in strategic forecasting, NYU business school professor, and popular author and speaker on tech and trends. She sat down with host Jeff Berman to share her insights on how every business can better prepare for the future.

Check out Amy Webb's latest tech trends report to go deeper on the topics discussed in this episode.

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Millions of users have joined social media platform Bluesky in recent weeks, as an alternative to Elon Musk's X. It’s sparking new opportunities and challenges for Bluesky's tiny 20-person team, and COO Rose Wang joins Rapid Response to discuss a major shift underway in social media. As dissatisfaction with the big platforms grows, she explains why the open network of Bluesky isn't just X by another name, nor a liberal refuge, but instead part of a new decentralized social web that prioritizes closer personal connections, data privacy, and democratization.

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Lauren Wang, founder of The Flex Company, is transforming the menstrual product industry with bold innovations and a tendency to break taboos. Driven by her own health needs and a staggering lack of progress in menstrual care, she spent years developing Flex Co’s unique menstrual disc and menstrual cups. She shares challenges, including scaling an unknown product via traditional retail outlets, and the leap to embrace authentic marketing as a means to build community. It’s often taken relentless focus on her mission for Lauren to overcome the obstacles and biases on her path to 30,000 stores, and growing.

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With the help of co-founder Mark Cuban, Cost Plus Drugs CEO Alex Oshmyansky is radically re-engineering the pharma marketplace and dramatically cutting the price for many prescription drugs. Oshmyansky joins Rapid Response host Bob Safian to share his amazing journey — from struggling as an immigrant in primary school to starting college at age 13, how medical practice led to entrepreneurship, plus reimagining his original plan on advice from the legendary incubator Y Combinator. Oshmyansky explains how Cost Plus Drugs stumbled into success, turning adversaries into allies and harnessing patience as a superpower.

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Danny Meyer is best known as the founder of Shake Shack and the legendary restaurants of his Union Square Hospitality Group in New York City. He joined host Jeff Berman on stage recently for the first Masters of Scale Live, presented by Capital One Business. 

Later in the conversation, Danny's daughter, Hallie Meyer, joined them on stage. Hallie is busy scaling her own food venture, the gourmet NYC ice cream shop Caffè Panna. The Meyers offer invaluable insights on how to scale great experiences for customers and teams. 

Find out how to attend upcoming live Masters of Scale events at mastersofscale.com/live

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Apple defies gravity, and AI is Divine. That’s how Guy Kawasaki, who worked closely with Steve Jobs and is now chief evangelist at Canva and host of the podcast Remarkable People, describes the state of tech now. Guy argues that Jobs would thrive in today’s business climate, muses about Tim Cook’s limitations, and explains what he means when he says “AI is God.” Plus unconventional advice about what it means to be remarkable in modern life, and why entrepreneurship is like surfing in the ocean.

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Award-winning actress and founder of Pattern Beauty Tracee Ellis Ross didn’t see Black beauty being represented well in the market – so she built a company from scratch to fix that. In this episode, she shares entrepreneurial lessons with her longtime friend Samira Nasr, who is editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar. Their conversation was recorded live on stage at the 2024 Masters of Scale Summit.

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Rapper and musician Iggy Azalea wants you to know that her crypto token $MOTHER isn’t just another ‘pump and dump’ celebrity crypto play. She believes in the future of cryptocurrency and the potential for fostering a new engaged community of followers — or ‘stans’ as she calls them. Azalea sits down with Rapid Response host Bob Safian to reveal why she retired from music and made the pivot into cryptocurrency, as well as founding an online gifting platform and telecommunication company. For any business looking to strengthen their brand around human connection, Iggy shares valuable advice for taking advantage of this digital age.

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Reid and Aria sat down with Bill Gates to discuss his main areas of focus: climate change, energy, global health, and education—and how AI will help transform each of them. Taking a bird’s-eye view of society’s challenges, it’s easy to give in to pessimism. But as one of the most influential people in the world, Bill Gates has a unique perspective on how far humanity has come and what our potential—and timelines—for meaningful change really look like. He gets granular on everything from cows (5% of global emissions) to disease reduction and eradication (Guinea worm disease). At each turn, he has data at his fingertips to ground his beliefs. So, what current set of innovations is Bill most excited about? And what is realistically on the horizon for AI, climate change, energy, global health, and education?

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