Emma Grede, entrepreneur: Success needs trade-offs
The Interview
BBC
4.3 • 537 Ratings
🗓️ 5 May 2026
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
“There's this idea that you [can] sail your way to success or have some overnight success or kind of come upon success relatively easily. And that has just never, ever been.”
Amol Rajan speaks to entrepreneur and businesswoman Emma Grede about the trade-offs we have to make to get to where we want to be in life.
Emma Grede is co-founder of the clothing brand Skims, which she created with her husband Jens and Kim Kardashian. From ordinary beginnings in East London to the forefront of global consumer brands and social influence in LA, Emma Grede argues that focus, trade-offs and relentless effort matter more than comfort if you are to succeed. She says that opportunity still exists, if you’re willing to chase it.
Thank you to the Radical with Amol Rajan team for its help in making this programme. The Interview brings you conversations with people shaping our world, from all over the world. The best interviews from the BBC, including episodes with Arlo Parks, Parmy Olson and Chloé Zhao. You can listen on the BBC World Service on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays at 0800 GMT. Or you can listen to The Interview as a podcast, out three times a week on BBC Sounds or wherever you get your podcasts.
Presenter: Amol Rajan Producer: Cordelia Hemming Editor: Damon Rose and Farhana Haider
Get in touch with us on email TheInterview@bbc.co.uk and use the hashtag #TheInterviewBBC on social media.
(Image: Emma Grede. Credit: Reuters)
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, radio, podcasts. |
| 0:05.7 | Hello, I'm BBC presenter, Amal Rajan, and this is the interview from the BBC World Service, |
| 0:11.3 | the best conversations coming out of the BBC, people shaping our world from all over the world. |
| 0:18.1 | If you're not a little bit afraid, then you're not paying attention. |
| 0:22.8 | We have never seen a people so united. |
| 0:26.3 | Do not make that boat crossing. Do not make that journey. |
| 0:29.0 | Being born in America, feeling American, having people treat me like I'm not. |
| 0:33.2 | We're more popular than populism. |
| 0:36.5 | For this interview, I met entrepreneur Emma Greed, co-founder of the brand Skims, |
| 0:41.7 | created with her husband Jens and Kim Kardashian, and the CEO and co-founder of fashion label, |
| 0:48.3 | Good American. She also serves on the board of the Obama Foundation. |
| 0:52.9 | You're going to hear about a career that stretches from |
| 0:55.1 | ordinary beginnings in East London to the forefront of global consumer brands and social influence |
| 1:00.9 | in LA. She talks about the trade-offs we have to make to get to where we want to be in life. |
| 1:06.4 | And she says that to be successful, you have to start with yourself and travel to where the action is. |
| 1:12.4 | We also discuss how she wants to break down old ideas of working women and motherhood. |
| 1:17.4 | All women that I know, working women that work either in or out of the home are completely exhausted. |
| 1:25.6 | And I don't think that motherhood got harder. |
| 1:28.4 | I think the expectations around motherhood got really hard. |
| 1:31.7 | And all I'm saying is what works for me is not walking around with this ball of guilt. |
| 1:37.5 | And if you have guilt, which most mum's will, |
| 1:40.1 | you've got to make sure that you're measuring that guilt against your own expectations, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.