CATAN: Reid Hoffman’s favorite board game for business leaders

Masters of Scale

WaitWhat

Entrepreneurship, Business, Management, Reid Hoffman, Mindset, Diversity & Inclusion, Jeff Berman, Bob Safian, Startups

4.6 • 4.4K Ratings

🗓️ 17 July 2025

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The board game CATAN has sold 45 million copies worldwide since Klaus Teuber invented it 30 years ago. It’s Reid Hoffman’s favorite board game for business leaders. He sat down with brothers Benjamin and Guido Teuber, who now run the business of CATAN, to talk about how they’ve kept the game evolving, why its core philosophy of strategic collaboration still resonates, and what entrepreneurs can learn from trading sheep for wood.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey listeners, we're launching a new Masters of Scale survey, and we'd love your input.
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0:13.8	Go to Mastersofscale.com slash Survey 25 to weigh in.
0:18.5	Again, go to Mastersofscale.com slash survey 25 to give your feedback.
0:25.4	Is your AI built for everyone, or is it built to work with your businesses' data?
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0:36.3	have more accurate AI instead of just more of it.
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0:47.0	Playing a game, especially Katan, makes you get to know that person much more than
0:53.7	endless hours of just conversing
0:55.8	because it brings out the real nature.
0:58.4	This week on Masters of Scale, I talk with Ben and Gido Toyber.
1:04.1	They're brothers who grew up playing the hit board game Catan
1:07.4	because 30 years ago, their father Klaus invented it.
1:11.6	Now the brothers run the business of Katan with more than 45 million games sold worldwide.
1:18.6	We'll talk about why I think this game, where players pretend to develop an island
1:24.6	by gathering resources, building roads, and forming trading alliances
1:29.2	is the best board game for entrepreneurs.
1:33.4	The publishing company was so overwhelmed because they got all of these orders.
1:37.9	They thought it was an April Fool's joke too late in the year when they got these orders.
1:42.5	And then the retailers said, no, no, we mean it.
1:44.5	We want that order.
	...

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