diapers.com: Marc Lore. The ecommerce visionary who lost to Amazon but still made billions (2021)

How I Built This with Guy Raz

Guy Raz | Wondery

Business

4.7 • 31.4K Ratings

🗓️ 30 March 2026

⏱️ 74 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Back in the early days of ecommerce, Marc Lore took a classic retail loss leader–diapers– and turned it into a DTC giant– Diapers.com. It did so well that it attracted the attention of Amazon, which slashed prices on its own diapers until Marc was forced to sell them his business.

It was not a happy moment, but it was a galvanizing one: Marc went on to launch another ecommerce company, jet.com. Within a year, it was bought by Walmart in a deal valued at $3.3 billion.

This is a story about a devastating corporate surrender, a multi-million dollar comeback, and a founder with a relentless ability to re-invent himself.

Timestamps:

10:04 – Marc’s “boost-your-grades” bet with his college coach

14:21 – A job on Wall Street and a Master Plan: 8 figures by age 48

16:28 – How a lunchtime lark turned into a spot on the U.S. Bobsled Team

27:44 – How random Google searches led Marc to diapers

35:29 – Guerilla tactic: Buying all of P&G’s diapers to get their attention

40:07 – The simple packaging hack that boosted sales

45:53 – Building a retail empire (and getting on Amazon’s radar)

47:52 – Amazon’s scorched earth strategy forces Marc to sell

1:00:11 – Raising $750M to take on Jeff Bezos

1:03:02 – A brand new business and a $3.3 billion exit: Walmart’s record-breaking deal

This episode was produced by Casey Herman with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by Neva Grant.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	I heard this stat recently that really stuck with me. Most businesses only use 20% of their data.
0:08.4	That's like reading a book with most of the pages torn out. How can you get the full story? And where's the other 80% of that data?
0:17.1	It's trapped in emails, buried in call logs and chat transcripts where businesses can't use it.
0:23.7	That's where HubSpot comes in.
0:25.8	Their customer platform brings everything together so you can get the full story.
0:31.1	Because when you know more, you grow more.
0:34.3	Visit HubSpot.com to get started.
0:48.7	Hey, it's Guy here. So this week, we're revisiting my conversation with Mark Lorry, the founder of diapers.com and jet.com. It is an incredible story. You will learn so much in this episode. Anyway, Mark is now
0:57.8	working on a new business called Wonder. It's a high-tech food delivery concept. And back in
1:03.4	2024, he joined me on the Advice Line podcast. And he talked about some of the challenges and
1:08.6	changes that Wonder is facing. So if you want to hear more about that, you can scroll back in your queue. But for now, let's hear how it all began with Mark's earliest business and diapers.com. Here's our conversation from May of 2021. Enjoy.
1:26.2	In the early days, believe it or not, we'd actually go to the wholesale clubs.
1:30.3	So BJ's, Sam's Club, and we would buy the diapers.
1:34.8	And you were just paying full price for these diapers?
1:37.3	Full price, no discount.
1:39.2	Then you got to mark it up on the website.
1:41.7	So why would somebody buy them from you on the website? We didn't mark them up.
1:46.0	You didn't mark them up. No, we just lost more money. You were basically losing money to make it
1:52.0	more convenient for people to get diapers. As one investor like to say, let me get this straight. So
1:57.1	you're selling a dollar for 90 cents.
2:12.3	Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.
2:44.4	I'm Guy Raz, and on the show today, how Mark Lurie took an idea guaranteed to lose him money, selling diapers online, built an e-commerce giant, sold it to Amazon, and then went head-to-head with them by building an even bigger business, Jet.com. Lots of stories we've told on this show are about consumer brands that succeeded not by creating something entirely new, but
	...

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