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

How I Built This with Guy Raz

Guy Raz | Wondery

Business

4.8 • 31.1K Ratings

🗓️ 14 December 2023

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Warby Parker co-CEOs Neil Blumenthal and Dave Gilboa broke their scrappy startup into the eyewear industry in 2010—putting legacy manufacturers on notice by offering stylish glasses at much lower prices. But having since gone public and facing pressure from digital landlords and changing technology, Warby Parker now faces a new set of challenges and unknowns...

This week on How I Built This Lab, Neil and Dave share insights on leading a public for-profit company with a social mission. Plus, why brick and mortar is essential to the business, despite starting as a direct-to-consumer brand, and how artificial intelligence will change eyecare as we know it.

Also, check out Warby Parker’s founding story told by Neil and Dave in December 2016.

This episode was produced by Sam Paulson with music by Ramtin Arablouei.

It was edited by John Isabella with research help from Kerry Thompson. Our audio engineer was Patrick Murray.

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See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Wundery Plus subscribers can listen to how I built this early and ad free right now.
0:05.0	Join Wundery Plus in the Wundery App or on Apple Podcasts.
0:10.0	Think of all the things you can do in 10 minutes or less.
0:12.0	Scroll through social media, check your bank balance. Think of all the things you can do in 10 minutes or less.
0:12.5	Scroll through social media, check your bank balance, make a sandwich.
0:16.4	Or learn about the surprising economics behind all these things.
0:20.4	The Indicid from Plan of Money is a quick hit of insight into the economics of business, work, and everyday life.
0:26.0	Every weekday in less than 10 minutes.
0:28.0	Listen now to The Indicator Podcast from NPR.
0:32.0	Hello and welcome to how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz. So I think it's fair to say that
0:38.1	Warby Parker has transformed the way Americans buy glasses. When the company launched back in 2010, the industry was dominated by just a few
0:48.7	legacy manufacturers and getting a pair of glasses for under a hundred bucks was virtually unheard of.
0:55.0	The co-founder is Neil Blumenthal and Dave Gilboa were actually some of the first guests we had on how I built this back in 2016.
1:01.0	And if you haven't heard that episode it's worth
1:04.0	scrolling all the way through the podcast queue it's towards the bottom to check it out
1:08.6	it is such an inspiring story anyway fast forward to today and Warby Parker is no longer the
1:16.1	scrappy startup it was back then. It's a publicly traded company with more
1:20.4	than 200 stores across the US and Canada and more than 3,000 employees.
1:26.0	But getting to that point hasn't exactly been smooth sailing.
1:30.0	The social media landscape that helped Warby Parker reach so many customers in the 2010s
1:35.8	has completely changed and competitors have entered the space offering similarly sleek and
1:42.4	stylish glasses at even lower prices.
	...

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