Rich Roll’s ‘crash course’ in entrepreneurship

Jeff Berman (0:01)

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Rich Roll (2:06)

I'm excited to talk to you. I think this is going to be a little bit of a different kind of conversation than I'm used to having. The idea of somebody starting their own business was like a foreign language. It's been really an amazing experience and a crash course in entrepreneurship.

To garner people's attention, you're best served by trafficking in contrarianism and platforming people with maybe not so great ideas. As somebody who is trying to operate from a place of integrity, it creates a conundrum.

Jeff Berman (2:39)

What happened in your life that you found yourself on that farm in Hawaii thinking about putting a first podcast out?

Rich Roll (2:46)

A lot happened.

Jeff Berman (2:55)

Welcome to Masters of Scale. I'm Jeff Berman, your host, and I am sitting in the Los Angeles area in the iconic studios of the iconic Rich Roll. Rich, welcome to Masters of Scale.

Rich Roll (3:06)

Thank you for having me, Jeff. It's been a long time in the making, and I'm excited to talk to you. I think this is going to be a little bit of a different kind of conversation than I'm used to having when I guest on podcasts.

Jeff Berman (3:18)

Why is it going to be different?

Rich Roll (3:19)

Well, most of my appearances tend to be in the wellness arena, by and large. I mean, it's called Masters of Scale. It's a business podcast. It might be the first quote unquote business podcast that I've ever been on, so I'm curious to hear what you're going to ask me.

Jeff Berman (3:36)

Let's start with this. When you started, could you have imagined getting to 1,000 episodes?

Rich Roll (3:42)

No way.

When I started, it was late 2012, and I still didn't know anybody personally other than myself who was a listener of podcasts. I would create these playlists because I would go out all day on my bike, and it became like this parasocial friendship that I began to develop with certain podcast hosts. And I had been so positively impacted by what I had experienced. And back then, it was a completely different thing. It was almost embarrassing to say you had a podcast. But when I figured out how to get a show up on iTunes and record an episode, I was doing it for fun. Like my wife and I, we were living at that time on an organic farm on the north shore of Kauai and the Hawaiian Islands. And I was starting to get island fever, and I wanted a creative project. And it was just a fun thing to try, not knowing whether I would ever publish a second episode. It was really just a fun thing to try out.

Jeff Berman (4:48)

We're sitting here in a gorgeous studio complex. You've got staff, you've got infrastructure, and you're building out a network, which I want to get into. What are the biggest differences between those early days and now for you, when you sit in the host chair and you engage these conversations?