Framing the future of eyecare with Neil Blumenthal and Dave Gilboa of Warby Parker

**Guy Raz** (0:01)
Hello, and welcome to How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz. So, I think it's fair to say that Warby Parker has transformed the way Americans buy glasses. When the company launched back in 2010, the industry was dominated by just a few legacy manufacturers, and getting a pair of glasses for under a hundred bucks was virtually unheard of.
The co-founders, Neil Blumenthal and Dave Gilboa, were actually some of the first guests we had on How I Built This back in 2016 And if you haven't heard that episode, it's worth scrolling all the way through the podcast queue. It's towards the bottom. To check it out, it is such an inspiring story. Anyway, fast forward to today, and Warby Parker is no longer the scrappy startup it was back then. It's a publicly traded company with more than 200 stores across the US and Canada, and more than 3,000 employees.
But getting to that point hasn't exactly been smooth sailing. The social media landscape that helped Warby Parker reach so many customers in the 2010s has completely changed, and competitors have entered the space, offering similarly sleek and stylish glasses at even lower prices. And maybe the biggest change of all, artificial intelligence, which Neil and Dave says is one of the main things that keeps them up at night today, but we'll get there. From the beginning, Neil and Dave have led the company as co-CEOs, an arrangement that's still in place today that they say helps them more effectively run their company.

**Dave Gilboa** (1:37)
Having a partner makes the highs a bit higher. We get to celebrate together when things are going well, and it makes the lows a bit higher where you have someone who can help pick you up when things are not on track, and there hasn't been a situation where we can't align and find a path forward. So we feel very lucky to be on this journey together.
Being a founder or an entrepreneur can often be very lonely, and so having a partner has been incredibly beneficial for both mental health and for achieving better outcomes.
We also recognize that it doesn't make sense for both of us to be involved in every meeting and every conversation, and so we do try to divide and conquer where we can. Sometimes that means that one of us is speaking at a conference while the other is managing some internal meetings, and then we each have our own direct reports. So every department, every executive, only reports to one of us, and that allows us to kind of spend more time in those parts of the business. Then Neil and I are constantly updating each other probably a couple dozen times a day if there's new information that's coming up. And then at least on a monthly basis, we'll each join the one-on-ones that our partner has with his direct reports. And so we're kind of constantly in the loop on all information that's going on in the company. And if we need to substitute for one another, we're informed and we can provide continuity. But it also enables us to be efficient in managing the day-to-day aspects of the business.

**Guy Raz** (3:12)
Neil, what happens if somebody says, oh, I spoke to Dave about this, or vice versa, I spoke to Neil about this? Like, I'm sure that happens and has happened a lot over the last few years.

**Neil Blumenthal** (3:22)
It does sometimes happens. And we joke around that we don't want to get in a situation where, you know, somebody gets one answer from mom and then goes to dad.
We now have a lot of practice as someone's asking for something that requires a little bit of thought. We don't feel an incredible amount of urgency to quickly commit to something.
And we'll say, hey, we'll get back to you, right? You know, one of our friends is a former Navy SEAL and was head of a special operations group and he taught us, hey, when you're faced with a decision, often like the first decision you have to make is how much time do you have to make this decision? Right? If you're in the Navy SEALs, often you have split seconds to make decisions. In business, you have often a lot of decisions. That means that you can't be slow, right? Because a competitive environment is fierce and you need to be making quick, informed decisions. But, you know, a couple hours a day often doesn't make a difference. In fact, it actually leads to a better outcome because you're more thoughtful and you might, you know, ask one more question, right? That leads to a better outcome.